


feed your focus

by breeeliss



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adulthood and bitterness, Aged-Up Characters, Cheating, Eventual Sexual Content, F/F, Marinette-centric, Paparazzi Scandals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-07 15:23:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 41,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7719928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breeeliss/pseuds/breeeliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It took a little over a week for Mayor Bourgeois to finally agree to an interview, but what he failed to do was confirm the identity of the other woman his daughter was pressing against the wall and kissing to within an inch of her life."</p><p>Marinette befriends Chloe after a particularly shocking scandal that Chloe would much rather forget. Besides, the past is in the past, and there are much more fun methods to be used to distract each other. </p><p>Explicit content to come.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> I really wrote this out of the blue, posted it impulsively, and will probably regret it. But there is a distinct lack of Chlonette in this archive so oh well. Gonna cap this at around 3-4 chapters only, so more to come soon. Bear with me.

A trashy tabloid had picked it up first.

The picture was blurry — probably taken with a phone camera pointed directly out of a clutch or breast pocket. But the dress was a Gabriel original. A long mustard chiffon gown that didn’t even have a tag, that wasn’t on the shelves for anyone else to buy, that was flaunted on her Instagram only hours before she appeared at the Mayor’s gala. It might as well have been a glimmering sign with her first, middle, and last name.

It took a little over a week of radio silence for Mayor Bourgeois to finally agree to an interview and confirm that yes, it was his daughter in the picture, ducking into a dark alcove tucked away a floor above the ballroom where the gala was being held. What he failed to do was confirm the identity of the other woman his daughter was pressing against the wall and kissing to within an inch of her life.

The face was too blurry, the dress too nondescript, he wouldn’t intrude upon the privacy of his attendees and guests, no he and his daughter weren’t available for comments at this time, any remaining questions could be directed to his publicist, tight smile, wave at the cameras, then nothing.

“You know he knows exactly who that chick is, right?”

Marinette had her feet kicked up on one of the ottomans next to the coffee table, skimming the original tabloid piece and tapping her nail against the damning photo. “He’s got plausible deniability though. I can’t even make out a hair color.”

Alya huffed and took a deep sip of her coffee. “They had a _week_ to get their shit together. One day is just shock. Two days is shock and confusion. A week is a cover up.”

Marinette smirked behind her magazine. “Nosy,” she teased. The minute Chloe’s name was dropped, Alya ran down two floors to the celebrity gossip writers and practically demanded to see any and all dirt that was dug up out of what she vaguely termed a “personal investment” in the story. Marinette couldn’t blame the curiosity. If there was one thing that Alya maintained even after graduating from lycée, it was that Chloe was still a complete and unadulterated enigma — an almost oblivious brattiness that demanded an explanation yet seemed to have none — and this scoop was only further proof of that.

Unfortunately the rookie columnist writers at Alya’s newspaper and the rest of Paris underestimated how a man who had spent much of his tenure bestowing nothing but praises upon his daughter could suddenly grow so tight lipped about her at the drop of a hat. Or the drop of a scandal, as it were.

Alya leaned her hip into the arm of the couch and looked over Marinette’s shoulder. “Jesus, what were the signs? Did we miss something in school?”

“Unless her cattiness in lycée was an indication of her proclivity for _pussy cats_ , I doubt it.”

Alya grabbed Marinette’s magazine and smacked her over the head with it. “Smart ass.”

Marinette chuckled and quickly greeted a customer that had walked in and started browsing through the display of trench coats near the front. “You make it sound like these sorts of things always have bread crumbs behind them. To be fair, we spent most of our time ignoring her.”

“Yes,” Alya conceded. “But we spent most of our time ignoring her because that girl made every single minutia of her life fabulously public.” She shook the magazine and dropped it on the pile of sample books on the table. “This doesn’t exactly scream like her typical cry for attention.”

The grainy photo was blown up on the front page, and Marinette was letting her eyes linger as she spoke. “Which frustrates you, I imagine?”

Alya was answering a work text on her phone. “The one time I _want_ the girl to be talking my head off about her business…”

Chloe’s head was tilted to the right, away from the camera, which meant her entire face was illuminated by the flash and left nothing hidden — her lashes, her golden makeup, the bottom of her lip caught in between her partner’s teeth, the smear of lipstick at the corner of her mouth. Her hands were gripping fiercely at the other woman’s hips, crushing their bodies close, pressing their breasts together, slowly prying each other apart in what they thought was a dark, draped corner of the world that finally let such a peaceful look on Chloe’s face be welcomed. It was intense enough to make Marinette feel like she was spying and flip the magazine over.

She nibbled on her thumb nail. “Have they gotten an interview with her fiance yet?”

Alya snorted and didn’t look up. “Apparently, he’s making a statement this afternoon. I doubt it’ll be uplifting.”

* * *

Marinette’s friends went in directions she fully predicted, and she relished in the predictability.

Alya started at a teen magazine writing their celebrity columns and finally ended at a popular newspaper after taking a last minute interview and impressing the shit out of the editor in chief with her portfolio. A dazzling article that unveiled an embezzling scheme within a local production company landed her a journalist seat.

Adrien had studied physics in university for a few years — for fun, he’d said — and barely had the time to walk off stage with his diploma before he was plucked up for Gabriel’s new haute couture collection. He got a handful of contracts pushed his way every month, and he was constantly travelling — last she’d heard, he was doing a few commercials in New York.

Nino opted out of university and started a small videography business that was nothing but a Facebook page with only two hundred likes. He happened to beautifully tape some woman’s wedding who went and talked him up to all of her friends, and now he had a website, a team of fifteen videographers, and five events a month.

It stood to reason, at least in Marinette’s opinion, that little had to change at that point, that habits died hard and friendships died harder. But the Alya who always swore she’d keep time for her family slept in her office most nights. Adrien who said he’d quit modeling the first moment he could was plastered across international ads. Nino who hated empty socializing shmoozed to Mayor Bourgeois to get the gala filmed and get in a huge commission.

She hadn’t seen Adrien in close to a year. Nino for six months. Yesterday was the first time she’d seen Alya in six weeks.

Her mother said that was an occupational hazard of adulthood, that you naturally lost control of things that used to feel so simple. Marinette believed it — nothing about the alienation felt dismissive, in fact most times, at one point or another, all four of them felt guilty for it. But Marinette was entitled to her bitterness, even if it was private and only known by herself.

That evening, the local news was saturated with news of the scandal, and Marinette was still keeping the tabloid on her coffee table, occasionally staring at it while she had her dinner alone.

They were in no way friends — their bickering was quite a sight to see back when they were still classmates, to the point where videos of them would go on Facebook simply for the theatricality of it all. None of that changed after they graduated. But Chloe was everywhere — Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, newspapers, commercials, charity events, political ads with her father, the list went on — and Marinette, like everyone else in Paris, accidentally found themselves following her every step, hanging off of her every word.

Chloe probably planned it that way, and as infuriating as that kind of cry for attention was, Marinette respected it.

It was Chloe down to the letter, and eight years after lycée didn’t change anything. She was her father’s pride and joy. Got everything she asked for. Famous. Engaged to a rich heartthrob. She had everything and she wanted you to know it. Marinette had to laugh at that kind of commitment and appreciate its consistency.

Except now Marinette couldn’t even count on the people she didn’t like to keep up that consistency.

People drunk on the spotlight didn’t sneak into dark alcoves to kiss people in secret. They didn’t cower away at press.

* * *

 

Coccinelle par Marinette had so far only technically existed as a storefront for a little over a year. However, it was named by three different famous local fashion magazines as the newest and most promising fashion business on this side of Paris.

Marinette was killing herself for two years after she graduated university trying to keep an online boutique with original designs, but orders were piling up quicker than she could sew, and she knew she needed more help and a bigger space. So she and two friends from university pooled together their savings along with about five thousand euros that Marinette borrowed from her parents and leased out a storefront. They were in the red for close to five months after that, but profit started rolling in soon after blogs and magazines were buzzing. Her stock had been flying off the shelves ever since.

It was a quaint storefront nestled in between two bookstores that wasn’t particularly big. But Marinette spent a lot of money on the white and red decor and giving the place a crisp, light, airy feel that she much preferred over anywhere else, even her own apartment with too little light and too much space. Moreover, it was an anomaly because, for such a high-quality boutique, it was situated in a rather unassuming part of Paris.

Hence why Chloe Bourgeois’s appearance was, to put it mildly, a fucking shock.

It was early Sunday morning — three hours before the store opened — and Marinette was sitting in the tailoring room in the back, picking up where one of her employees left off on four custom tailored silk blouses she was meant to have done by Tuesday. She heard the bell above the glass front foot, reminding her that she’d forgotten to lock the door behind her again.

Marinette spoke through the pins she was holding between her teeth and didn’t look away from her sewing. “We’re closed. Come back at noon.”

She heard the door shut and a pair of heels click across the hardwood floors, delicate and hollow, towards the tailoring room. “Can you make an exception?”

“I’m pretty stubborn when it comes to exceptions.”

A small laugh, a short push of air through the nose, and the heels stopped right in front of her work table. “Then that makes two of us.”

She could only think of two instances since they graduated where she’d seen Chloe in person. One was at a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new cultural center that she’d just happen to be passing by during her morning run. Chloe was standing just to the left of her father, looking more bored than inconvenienced, her hands folded in front of her and taking periodic glances at her cellphone behind the cover of her purse.

The other was when Marinette was browsing around a rather expensive antique shop to splurge on a gift for her mother after a decent commission. She was looking at brooches, old tea sets, and sewing boxes when she saw Chloe across the store, staring at the pendants laid out on velvet pillows behind a class case. It was the perfect place for a wealthy and annoyingly particular person, and she seemed rather interested in purchasing something before she eventually gave up and left empty handed.

They were both forced down to the same level in high school, and it was rather easy for the two of them to drag each other through an animosity that was exhausting, but invigorating in a way that Marinette couldn’t say about anything else. But that equality lost its weight once they both left school, and now Chloe existed on this lofty plane of existence that Marinette couldn’t bothered to reach for.

But as she stood in front of her desk, Marinette wondered if that was true anymore. Chloe looked softer somehow — like she’d forgotten to fill her brows or contour her face, god forbid — and her hair was braided off carelessly like she’s only barely remembered to do it this morning, and like she’d actually done it _herself_. Marinette raised a brow and hummed in interest.

Chloe looked like she was expecting a response. When she got none, she opened her bag, pulled out a wallet, and slapped a small pile of euros in the middle of her desk.

Marinette eyed it curiously and rested her chin on the back of her hand. “Typically the way this works is that you request a service or a product from me. _Then_ you hand me money.”

“Your sarcasm isn’t appreciated right now.”

“It gets me through the day,” she shrugged. She gestured to the table. “Can I know what you’re purchasing?”

Chloe inhaled sharply through her nose, as if trying to collect patience from the air. “Your discretion.”

Interesting. “Similar to the discretion you’re practicing right now by sneaking into my store before hours?”

She did a perfect eye roll. “God, can you drop the pettiness for one fucking second?”

Marinette didn’t blink at the cursing and leaned closer to her. “I still need an answer.”

Chloe pulled her gloves off and stuffed them into her purse. “I just want to shop in peace.”

“So you came here?”

“You’re not a gossip. You never were.”

Marinette tapped the money on her desk with a single finger. “I’m sure there are higher end boutiques more suited to your taste that are also _discreet_.”

“No one would ever think to find me shopping here.” She looked around at the dress forms and shelves of fabric around the room, arched an eyebrow, but made no comment on them. “I don’t want people swarming me with questions.”

Not surprising. The local paper put out quite the disparaging piece about her earlier in the week after news of her broken engagement became public. The mysterious belle at the gala was still just that, a mystery, but enough theories had been thrown out by celebrity gossip blogs to make the whole affair rather overwhelming. Marinette had long started switching channels and turning over articles purely because of oversaturation. She could only imagine how it felt to be the featured topic.

She accidentally let her eyes linger on Chloe’s hand hovering over her bag — her left hand, noticeably bare of any jewelry. Chloe must have seen the gesture because she pulled her hand back, stuffed it into her coat pocket, and turned her eyes down to the floor.

Marinette bit the inside of her cheek. “No one would think to find you,” she repeated. “Is this too lowly for your tastes?”

“Oh come off it,” she sighed. “That’s not what I meant. I wouldn’t be here if I wouldn’t put this stuff on my back. You must at least know _that_ much.”

“Do I?”

Chloe slid one of the reference sketches on Marinette’s desk closer to her. “Well, the place didn’t crash and burn like I expected it to. That must count for something.”

Marinette snorted. It was rather muted for Chloe, but an insult was still an insult and it felt like the world had righted itself just a touch. Nostalgia had a habit of doing that.

She sighed and pushed her chair back. “Everything in here is under 200 euros. Full disclosure.”

Chloe turned her eyes up to the ceiling. “I’ll...manage.”

Marinette smiled, grabbed the money off the table, and walked around her desk and to the front of the boutique. “Coffee or water?”

Chloe dropped her bag and her coat on the couch in the middle of the room and crossed her legs at the ankles. “Coffee.”

Marinette placed the steaming cup on a saucer, asked her how much milk she wanted, and placed it on the glass table in front of her. She grabbed the remote to her speakers and turned up the music a couple of notches. “Take your time. Everything we have in stock is on the racks and shelves. We also do custom tailoring if you have time for a measuring.” She grabbed a money clip from the register counter, folded up the wad of bills that Chloe had previously offered her, and slid it next to her coffee. Chloe looked up at her in protest but Marinette cut her off. “Anything in particular you’re looking for?”

Chloe scrutinized her face, looking positively perplexed. She licked her lips and looked like she was prepared to tell her off, but she sighed out the criticism and actually smiled in disbelief. Chloe took the cash back and swiped her bangs behind her ears. “I just need a dress for a brunch tomorrow.”

Marinette slowly looked Chloe up and down and nodded. “I’ve got a couple of things that would look good on you.”

* * *

 

Alya called her early one Wednesday morning to say that Adrien was flying back to Paris.

“Yeah, something about finishing his New York contract early. Wanted to visit his father and take care of things at home. Nino’s around. We should do lunch or something! It’s been a while.”

Marinette sort of remembered Adrien telling her he was going to go to Los Angeles for a bit for the sightseeing before he came back to Paris, since he wasn’t too eager to jump onto the Gabriel Spring Collection just yet. Sometimes about not wanting to see his father anytime soon. She was sure news of Chloe rushed him back.

All four of them had planned to meet for brunch today, but Alya got hounded by her editor to push an interview up, and Nino was sick and crashing after editing a particularly long video. Adrien suggested that they just screw it and hog the bottle of wine for themselves. Marinette couldn’t have agreed more.

“So it’s official. My engagement present was sent back this morning.”

Marinette swirled her wine in her glass before downing it in one swallow. “Were you expecting her to keep it?”

Adrien shrugged and refilled Marinette’s glass. “I told her she could. But I guess she’d rather just rip the bandage off in one shot. I can understand that.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s...handling it,” he said vaguely. “I think she’s pushing everything into being productive. I’m sure sending back presents was just something for her to do.” He pointed to her plate. “You want more? I don’t have anywhere else to I need to be and I’m still hungry. I’ll pay.”

Marinette smirked. “Is your stylist alright with all the carbs you’re inhaling?”

“Um, excuse you, it’s my cheat day. I’m allowed to have as much bread and cheese as I want.”

Marinette wouldn’t be surprised if a few newspapers and magazines were practically drooling at the prospect of getting an interview with Adrien to see if he could fill in the larger blanks of Chloe’s story. He was her self-proclaimed best friend, and if both she and her father were deciding to keep mum, then Adrien was their best bet. But he’d been in Paris for a week and so far he’d kept his mouth shut about anything having to do with her. The most the press was able to snag was a few pictures of them at a bistro near the Bourgeois mansion, with Chloe wearing one of Marinette’s dresses. She expected Adrien to want to focus on safe topics: work, her business, the weather.

But the moment they sat down and got the pleasantries out of the way, neither of them could resist the topic.

When their second round of food had arrived, Marinette asked, “So have you talked to him?”

“Him who?”

“Our recently jilted fiance.”

Adrien wrinkled his nose. “Sort of.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, he called me. I’m one of her only friends, so he wanted to know if I knew. You know, about…”

Marinette nodded. “...and did you?”

Adrien firmly shook his head. “Chloe tells me most things. Not these things. Besides, even if I did, I wouldn’t tell him.”

“Weren’t you friends, though? I thought he modelled at Gabriel with you.”

Adrien snorted. “He liked to think we were. I can’t stand him. He’s trying to figure out where he went wrong. I tried to explain to him that it had nothing to do with that, but it’s always got to be about him. No one saw this coming, not even me.”

Marinette traced her finger along the rim of her glass. “You have an idea of who the woman was?”

Adrien chuckled and cupped his hands around his elbows. “Well that’s the big question, isn’t it?”

“So, what, she just disappeared? No one knows?”

Adrien shrugged. “Just one.”

Marinette turned her ring on her finger and looked out at the sidewalk through the restaurant window, suddenly feeling disquieted. She reached for the wine bottle only to realize that they’d run out. “Can we get more?”

“Cool it on the wine. It’s only two.”

“I’m troubled, leave me alone.” She quickly asked their server to bring them another bottle and ruffled her hair.

He quirked his brow up. “You want to elaborate?”

“Not really.”

“I haven’t seen you in months. Humor me.”

“It’s stupid.”

“Mind if I’m the judge of that?”

He was too damnably nice sometimes, and she sort of wished he’d just act indifferent towards her feelings and talk about himself. At least that would distract her. Chloe had been on her mind for days and she sort of wanted a reprieve from that. But Adrien was all concern and sincerity and that wasn’t the sort of thing you avoided. “She’s been coming to my boutique…”

Adrien’s eyes widened in interest. “Willingly?”

Marinette nodded. “I mean, she came of her own free will. But she made it seem like she didn’t have many options. Almost paid me off to get me not to tip off any reporters about her and let her come in before I open.”

“Did you take the money?”

“I don’t take bribes,” she answered firmly. “She looked like she just wanted some breathing room. She’s getting bombarded.”

Adrien looked like he understood. “Idle people have nothing else to do but keep themselves busy with talk. Chloe runs exclusively in those circles. I’m not surprised.”

“I dunno, it’s weird. _She’s_ weird. She hates me, you know.”

“She _hated_ you. Past tense. For arbitrary reasons that I’m sure she couldn’t even explain to me right now.”

Marinette watched their server pour out the wine and took a large gulp that made her head swim. “This girl was universally disliked all throughout our time in school, and remained perfectly and blissfully unaware of it. Or at least she did a hell of a good job of pretending like she didn’t care. Why is this different?”

“Because that was years ago, Marinette,” Adrien said tiredly. “People change. React to things differently. Who’s to say she has to handle this a certain way?”

“I do. Because she’s Chloe…” Because Marinette freakin’ needed that much.

Adrien smirked. “She’s Chloe, yet you’re turning down bribes and willingly helping her.”

Marinette took three bites of her food and tried to come up with an answer that was satisfying. “...it’d be cruel to say no.” Chloe knew she wouldn’t say no. It wasn’t even because Chloe assumed that anyone she’d ask would simply kowtow on their knees and go out of their way for her. Chloe trusted her, even if the only basis for that trust was because Marinette wasn’t a terrible person.

Those were incredibly low standards, but Chloe made it clear she didn’t exactly have the privilege of choice.

She didn’t realize she was agitated and drumming her nails on the tablecloth until Adrien laid a hand over hers. “Hey, relax. For what it’s worth, I appreciate what you’re doing for her.”

Marinette clenched her fingers underneath his hold, but he didn’t move his hand. “I would’ve done it for anyone,” Marinette answered.

“But I’m thanking you for doing it for _her_ ,” he clarified. “I know she’s difficult. But she needs people who aren’t going to screw her over right now.”

Marinette bit down on her bottom lip thoughtfully and looked up to meet his eyes. “I know.”

Her heart did a little jump when his smile spread to his eyes, and she hated herself for it. Being friends with Adrien in lycée was like breathing, and she was so angry at herself for waiting so long to initiate it. But despite how inseparable she, Adrien, Alya, and Nino were, it also became obvious to her that he only ever saw her as a close friend — leaning his head in her lap, holding her hand while he ran down the sidewalk, and sleeping over at her house were normal for him and agonizing for her. So agonizing that when they graduated and she headed off for university, she cut her losses, buried her crush on him, and poured brine and salt over it to make sure it stayed dead.

But it never did, because as they got older and they saw less of each other, their interactions were charged with this strange sense of longing, like little looks and touches that burned and meant a lot more than just a familiarity with someone’s stare and someone’s skin. Some days, when Marinette was feeling lonely and her emotions were riled and festered, she thought that if she just fucked it all and kissed him one day, he probably wouldn’t mind. No, she definitely didn’t think he would. And fourteen year old Marinette would have swooned at that realization if she’d had it.

But twenty-six year old Marinette saw Adrien more on magazine covers than she did in person nowadays. She stayed on the phone with him when he talked about all the girlfriends he had who complained he hadn’t enough time for them. She listened when he agonized over how to make more time for people, more time for himself, and only saw him get busier the more famous he became. The same bitterness she’s have for her empty bed would be directed at him as well, no matter how hard she tried to quell it.

Suddenly, she thought of Chloe sitting alone in her house, hiding secrets, rubbing bare ring fingers, sending back presents, and ripping up invitations.

Marinette pulled her hand back slowly and took another large swig of wine. “How did I get roped into this?”

Adrien plucked the bottle away from her with a frown and topped off his own glass. “It’ll pass. It’s just celebrity gossip. Some politician will be cheating on his wife with a man from Grindr by next week and this will be nothing.”

Marinette smiled wryly. “And then back to normal?”

“Just like you like it.”

* * *

 

Chloe always showed up before Marinette opened up and right after she closed. Always when the boutique was empty, always when no one would see.

Marinette wished she knew what it was like to constantly feel like you had a scarcity of belongings that made you want to indulge out of want and not necessity. There were of course days when Chloe came inside looking for something specific — a new clutch to replace the one whose strap had broken, a dress for a dinner with her father’s politician friends, a pair of shoes to match the exact color of this shirt or this blouse. But some days, usually late at night when she knew Marinette would be working on her commissions, she’d stroll in, grab the first ten items she touched, slap them on the counter, and demand them all in her size.

She wondered if it was just further proof of Adrien’s theory — doing things just to do them, to keep her mind busy, to keep the distractions coming. But that seemed like low hanging proof especially when Marinette was almost positive that Chloe really was just that vain.

Still, Marinette was not one to complain. Especially not when she made over two thousand euros last week just from Chloe’s purchases alone.

The truly strange thing was that Marinette fully expected Chloe to be nothing but clinical and professional, treating this arrangement simply for what it was: convenience. But, for reasons Marinette hadn’t quite worked out yet, Chloe was awfully chatty. For the past three weeks their conversations, while filled with far more deprecating humor than most people had the stomach for, were civil in comparison to the literal shouting matches they used to have in school. It was surprising, but Marinette couldn’t find it in her to discourage it.

“Why in God’s name are you always here so early?”

Marinette glared in reaction, but didn’t look up from her book. “This coming from the maniac who ran in here at seven in the morning asking for a cocktail dress she doesn’t need.”

Chloe was standing in the mirrors, adjusting the bust of a baby blue cocktail dress with a black bow under the bust that Marinette had picked out for her. “I didn’t know that a proof of occasion was needed to purchase clothes from here.” She turned and smirked. “What if I plan to have this ripped off me tonight and thrown across my floor while I get ravaged four feet away? Would I need to prove that?”

“If that’s true, might I suggest a dress with a thigh slit and a zip in the back? Easier between-the-leg access.”

Chloe rolled her eyes and turned around to look at herself from the back. “Is that even appropriate to discuss with a customer?”

“You were the one who brought it up.”

“You were the one who needed a reason.” She laughed and twirled in the mirror. “What shoes do you have that’ll match this?”

Marinette stood and moved to the shelves along the left wall that had all of her heels, sandals, and boots. “Does a black suede heel appeal to you? I have one with a bow on the toe that matches that dress perfectly.”

“Thanks,” Chloe said shortly. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

“No, proof wouldn’t be needed, but if you really felt the need to pass me off a sex tape, I’d appreciate the hundreds of euros I’d get for selling it.”

Chloe glared. “Bitch. Size eight.”

Marinette laughed and plucked the appropriate size shoe from the shelf and handed it off to Chloe. “I like being productive,” Marinette answered. “I always wake up early anyway, so the choices are come here and do work or sit like a lug on my couch and watch Project Runway reruns.”

“No one to keep you occupied in the mornings?”

She shoved the shoes into Chloe’s chest harder than she meant to and fell back onto the couch. “No.”

But Chloe was already cackling. “You know, some good company might shave off all the bitchiness. This place is successful, for God’s sake, and you have employees to do all that busy work for you. You’re here this early to torture yourself.”

“One, you’re a hypocrite, and two, maybe I like the torture.” She smirked. “Do you want to see the clutch for those?”

Chloe wiggled her toes around in the shoes. “No clutch, but a shawl would be nice. To answer two, you’re fucking insane. And to answer one, this isn’t work. This is leisure. Besides, I have no choice. I merely take advantage of your weird schedule because it benefits me.”

Marinette cross her arms. “And because I _let_ you.”

Chloe smirked. “Of course.” She turned to Marinette and waved her away. “Come on. Shawl! It’s still winter time, do you want me to freeze?”

“You better say please before I pull out something orange and you make you look like a clown.”

Chloe stuck her tongue out. “You really are single.”

“And you really are a brat.”

She shrugged in response. “Hey, at least one of us is getting stress relieving action every once in awhile. You might want to follow suit. Might make you more pleasant to be around. Less uptight.”

Marinette threw the shawl in her face and smiled at Chloe’s shocked little scream while she went back to her book. She was so close to making a dig about the fact that Chloe was probably going sexless right now because of her broken engagement, but that would have been low even for the two of them. Besides, from the looks of the things, that didn’t seem to be where Chloe was going to get her kicks.

It was the elephant in the room and the back of Marinette’s mind was oddly fixated on it. Maybe it was because Chloe had all but fallen to her knees to worship Adrien in school that the idea of another woman peeling an expensive dress off of Chloe’s body, spreading it on her floor, and pressing her deep into a mattress in a flurry of sighs and fingers and mouths was so damn perplexing. She wanted to say that Chloe didn’t seem the type, but of course it was silly to try and discern something as complex as sexuality through aesthetic alone.

But maybe that’s why her brain was working so hard. Marinette found herself trying to imagine it purely for practical purposes — Chloe relieving stress under the touch of a woman, and not the touch of her fiance, Chloe rolling over in the mornings to press her lips to a soft pair of breasts instead of the flat plane of a muscled chest, Chloe completely slipping out of the grasps of all the men who fantasized about the day she’d even bless them with a stare that lasted longer than a second, and hiding in the shadows to steal a few kisses from a woman who was worth being murdered by the press for.

It was truly fascinating, especially when you considered that Chloe was willing to push her life off kilter and act as if nothing had gone wrong with the exception of the minor inconveniences that were her shopping habits now. That wasn’t Chloe speeding through life and plucking up whatever caught her fancy, knowing that she could get it if she blinked her pretty lashes enough or flashed enough wads of money. That was Chloe caring about something, and dammit if Marinette didn’t want to be just a little bit nosy.

Chloe had already slipped out of her dress and started looking at the rack of trench coats, and Marinette decided that she was bored this morning.

“What makes you think I’d want to follow suit with _your_ stress relief methods?”

Chloe paused in front of the racks, turned around slowly, and smirked. “And which methods would those be?”

Marinette shrugged. “Methods with a little more cushion and curves, so to speak.”

It took a couple of seconds for it to sink in, but when it did Chloe threw her head back and laughed — genuinely and fully, not because she was trying to be mocking or derisive. “Do they offend you?”

“Take a guess.”

Chloe was looking like she was trying to pick Marinette apart for answers, trying to decide if she was about to ridicule her or shame her for what had been blared in the papers recently, but Marinette raised her eyebrows in challenge, and then Chloe’s jaw fell open. “Shut up….you’re fucking with me.”

Marinette shook her head. “Nope.”

“No way,” she said, shaking her head. “You were completely drooling over Adrien in school.”

“So were you!” Marinette laughed. “Clearly that didn’t mean anything for either of us.”

Chloe snorted. “Son of a bitch. Since when?”

Marinette leaned back against the couch cushions and bit her lip. “Mmm...when I was 16? Had a teeny friend crush on Alya for a little while, but then do you remember that Italian student that transferred in? Lila? After she showed up, forget it. I was a goner.”

“Funny,” Chloe smiled. “I had a thing for her too.”

“Her hips were delicious.”

“Oh please, forget her hips. Those legs went on for miles. Lord have mercy.”

“Juleka’s legs were nicer.”

“Uh, duh. Juleka’s legs were nicer than _everyone’s_ legs.

Marinette didn’t know why that comment had suddenly made her laugh so hard, but it did and she almost fell off the side of the couch from all the effort, and pretty soon Chloe had tears in her eyes and was bending over at the waist she was laughing so hard. Of all the disagreements they had over the years and after literally making lists in her head of how completely dissonant the two of them were, this was the thing that they saw eye to eye on.

“You know, I’m pretty sure her and Rose started dating after we all graduated.”

Chloe nodded vigorously. “Oh trust me. I was super pissed when I found out I wasn’t the only person daydreaming about girls in class.”

Whatever shopping Chloe planned on continuing was completely abandoned and she was sitting on the arm of the couch that Marinette was laid out in. “And what? You’re mad at me now?”

“Of course I am!” she said with her nose turned up into the air. “Would have been super pertinent information to have while we were still classmates, you jerk.”

“Why?”

Chloe shrugged simply and started at Marinette with a glint of humor. “Might have made me hate you a little bit less.”

Marinette snorted at that. For some reason, that seemed like a stretch. “How the hell does that make any sense?”

“Ah, you gotta hold a little bit of empathy for ladies who love other ladies. It’s like a solidarity thing.” Chloe sighed out from her nose and slid rather ungracefully from the arm of the couch onto the cushion underneath her, her jeans riding up her ankles from the effort. “Besides...would have been nice to have some company through the funk.”

Marinette tucked her feet underneath her. “You think we would have been friends?”

“Not necessarily,” Chloe said. “I mean, _that_ ship went and sailed anyway so no use in what ifs. But even if we didn’t talk, it might have at least been comforting.”

“What like...comfort in just knowing you’re not the only one?”

“Exactly.”

Marinette tapped her toes together and thought about her own crisis in coming out to herself. It consisted a lot of reading, looking up porn that made her feel guilty for watching, decoding dreams that must have meant everything else but the obvious, and trying to force herself to stare at pretty girls and finally just try and be at peace with whatever her brain decided to produce. It was sort of a lonely process until Alya kind of put the pieces together thanks to her damnably good perception and just being an expert on Marinette in general. After that, at least she had someone to talk at, even if Alya didn’t totally get her.

Sabrina didn’t seem like the type of person Chloe would spill too many personal things to. Her father seemed a little out of the question too. Whether or not it was an issue of comfort or an issue of trust — or both — Marinette couldn’t possibly tell. Either option made Marinette almost a little sad to see Chloe suddenly retreat within herself, sitting in front of her on the couch, being honest with Marinette after three weeks. It almost seemed misplaced, but a part of her didn’t want to question or break it.

It made this whole scandal all the more off-putting.

Marinette impulsively knocked her foot against Chloe’s to get her attention. “Do you want to start our weird lady-loving solidarity now?”

Chloe snorted. “We’re going to have to cut our palms open. Do you mind blood?”

“I thought we just had to decide who’s the peacoat bisexual and who’s the leather jacket bisexual.”

That made Chloe cackle and fall back against the cushions. She wiped underneath her eyes. “You be leather jacket. I’ll be peacoat.”

“Deal.”

“The more interesting question,” Chloe announced. “Who the hell was your first girl kiss?”

Marinette blinked and started adamantly shaking her head. “Nope. No way. Not doing this.”

“Screw you, yes you are,” Chloe glared. “You owe me.”

“For what!?” Marinette chortled. “I’m the one doing you favors!”

“For all the business I give you!” she responded matter-of-factly. “I’ve blasted close to five thousand euros on your damn clothing.”

“Get off your high horse, I was doing just fine before you.”

“Come on,” Chloe groaned. “I’m done shopping. You’re a weirdo who gets here too early for her own good. I’m depressingly bored. You have to have a good story in there somewhere.”

There it was again, Marinette noticed. Typical Chloe Bourgeois obliviousness. Except it wasn’t obliviousness towards other people’s feelings. It seemed like they were towards her own. Like she didn’t want to think about their animosity, or her broken engagement, or that photo, or that woman, or the fact that the press wanted to eat her alive. She was sitting here in the boutique of a girl she hated during school and was asking her for silly, funny stories that could make her curl up on the couch and laugh.

And Marinette wanted to. Because Chloe was here. Here everyday. Asking for silly little things that Marinette strangely didn’t mind handing out — harmless stories and clothes off her shelves and all the discretion she wanted.

Marinette needed distractions too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read/like/reblog the chapter on Tumblr [here](http://breeeliss.tumblr.com/post/148675230969/miraculous-ladybug-feed-your-focus)  
> Follow me at breeeliss.tumblr.com


	2. Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all don't understand the saga that was the process for writing this chapter. I'm just glad it's finally done.

There was one time in lycée — just once — where Marinette and Chloe actually came to blows.

Marinette couldn’t remember what it was that Chloe had initially said to start the whole mess, but she was pretty sure Chloe had said something nasty to Nathanael. To be quite honest, it probably wasn’t any more inflammatory than the things that Chloe usually directed at people, but Marinette was in a terrible mood that day, and Chloe seemed similarly on edge.

What had started as a defense of a student turned into this ridiculous shouting match in the courtyard that was starting to get that kind of personal that only popped up when arguments got desperate. It was usually that time when people said things they didn’t mean.

Chloe was saying a lot of things about her family, about their run down bakery, about the fact that her clothes would never look like anything but something a five year old would cough up because she couldn’t even afford a strip of leather. Marinette took it as a full invitation to trash her spoiled attitude, her lack of friends, her lack of invites to anything her classmates did, and that fact that no one really cared if she left this school or not because everyone would probably be better off.

It was low and petty and nasty even for Marinette, but Chloe kept it going just as hard. They were baiting each other so much that the rest of the courtyard sort of just watched on in silence.

They were practically nose to nose at one point as Chloe literally screamed in her face, “You think you’re this holier than thou light from above that can just waltz in here and bad mouth anyone that you don’t like because you’re a pretentious little brat! My business is my business, what I say is what I say, and you can just go right on ahead and leave me the hell alone!”

“While your daddy was too busy spoiling you and giving you everything your whiny little butt asked for, he apparently forgot to teach you how to treat people like human beings. You don’t just get to say whatever the heck you want and get mad when people call you out on your garbage.”

“Oh cry me a river!” Chloe shouted. “You think the world is going to end because someone said a mean little word? The world sucks. People are gonna stomp on you and say things that are true and that you don’t like. Stop acting like a freakin’ coward and just take it. I am not responsible for people crying in bathrooms because they can’t take a little heat.”

Marinette was laughing in disbelief. “You’re unreal, you know that? You are so blissfully unaware of everyone else in the world but you. You’re a cold-hearted, selfish little brat who doesn’t know how to care about anyone else’s interest but your own. You don’t know how to treat people, you don’t know how to talk to people, and nobody likes you!”

“You shut up!” Chloe grit out.

But Marinette was still on a roll. “Everyone here already knows it because everyone has been a victim of your bullying. So congratulations because you’ve officially convinced everyone in this room, including me, that you’re a frigid snob who is physically incapable of caring about anyone!”

Her last shout echoed in the room right along with the violent slap that Chloe planted on her left cheek that made her head snap to the side. Marinette felt her entire cheek blossom in pain and didn’t even bother stopping herself from backhanding Chloe across the face as well.

By the time their classmates had run off to find a teacher, Marinette had split Chloe’s lip open and Chloe was holding a few strands of Marinette’s hair that she’d managed to pull out in the fight.

They were sent to the principal’s office and both of their parents were called.

They were sitting on the floor just outside his office, both of them holding the ice bags the nurse gave them to their faces, waiting for their parents to come down. Marinette was sitting there, horrified with herself. This wasn’t just grounds for just staying after school or getting extra homework. This was grounds for exclusion — maybe temporary, maybe permanent. It wasn’t like Chloe had to worry about any of that nonsense since she had her father to fall back on, and Marinette couldn’t believe she had stooped to the girl’s level. Her parents were going to so disappointed with her.

She was thinking of every possible, horrible scenario that could result from one stupid mistake when Chloe spoke up next to her.

“You’re a real bitch, you know that?”

Marinette rolled her eyes and pressed her ice bag against her cheek. “Get away from me. Do you not see we’re in enough trouble already?”

“You don’t get to make calls like that,” Chloe said quietly. “You don’t get to decide that people are incapable of caring about others. You don’t know anything about me. So you can just go right ahead and screw yourself.”

She probably would have felt a little more guilty had Chloe not said the things she said to Marinette. “Well then I’ll go to my dirty, rundown bakery and to my poor parents while you rot away in your diamond palace _alone_.” Marinette sighed and turned away from her. “Just leave it be.”

They said nothing to each other when their parents arrived, said nothing when even Chloe’s father was incapable of getting her out of trouble, said nothing when they walked out the office, both being excluded from school for the entirety of the day and sent packing with piles of homework and apology letters to write.

Marinette had been practically begging for the day when she could finally render Chloe speechless. That wasn’t how she expected it to happen.

In fact, she never thought she’d hear Chloe sound so quiet and so burned from something anyone else said. She almost seemed immune to it, and it was that kind of quality in a person you expected to hold up against anything.

Two days later, Chloe was business as usual, as if nothing had happened. But Marinette knew better.

* * *

Marinette was on her couch eating leftovers for dinner when she saw Chloe’s ex-fiance featured on television during an interview talking about news of Chloe’s affair.

She recognized the man off of a few Gabriel ads for their formal wear line that he’d done alongside Adrien. Attractive, but a little too severe looking for her tastes, features that were too sharp. It always made him look a touch too condescending, like he was in a constant state of thinking that his time and presence were more important than everyone else’s. Adrien always complained to her about him at length when they were actively modeling together, but Marinette joked that he was probably the perfect person for Chloe.

“It’s...a heartbreaking thing to hear,” he had told the interviewer. “And cheating just feels like a despicable betrayal. But it seems she thought it would be better this way. I just hope she made the right decision.”

“Do _you_ think this was for the best?” the interviewer asked him. “Was this the best thing that could have happened?”

“If you muddy the entrance, you’ll muddy the exit,” he responded. “So yes I do think it’ll be for the best. If silly little flings were going to be issues now, it would’ve only ruined things in the future. Sometimes things need to end before they get worse.”

“So...no hope of ending on good terms.”

“Oh, no. I don’t put effort into useless ends.”

His voice was practically dripping in condescension, and Marinette felt her lip curl into a snarl and immediately switched the channel. “Asshole…”

Chloe came the next morning bright and early and barged in like she usually did. Marinette was already circling around her desk to the front of the store to greet her until she saw Chloe’s appearance. It was raining outside, so Chloe put up the hood of the sweater she was wearing underneath her bubble jacket. She looked like she was wearing old jeans, she had no makeup on, and her hair was thrown up into a bun that looked way too unkempt for anything Chloe usually allowed in public.

She was taking off her outer jacket and Marinette saw her swollen eyes. She was about to ask what was wrong before Chloe interrupted her. “How long will it take for you to make a dress?”

Marinette frowned. “What...by scratch?”

“Yes,” Chloe said impatiently. “Your custom tailoring. How long does that take?”

“Depends. I’m kind of backed up on commissions right now, so it might take me a couple of weeks.”

“What about the actual measuring? And like, picking fabrics and colors and stuff.”

“That’s all on you. I’d guess about an hour, but — ”

“Cool, so do I just stand back here?” Chloe asked. She was already walking back to the tailoring room and not waiting for or expecting an answer to her question.

“Wait, hold on a second!” Marinette demanded. “What is your problem?”

Chloe whirled around. “I don’t have a problem!” she said too harshly and too loudly. “I just want a fucking dress! Is that okay?”

Marinette slowly lifted her hands and took a small step back. “Okay, alright,” she said softly. “It’s fine. We can measure you today and plan out the dress together right now.”

Chloe swallowed and put her fingers around her throat as if she had only just realized how loud her voice had been. She looked off to the side, eyeing the long strips of fabric and swatches of embroidery that Marinette had been working on before she barged in, and forced her head to nod once. “Alright.”

Marinette moved around her carefully and grabbed a fresh order form from her desk. She pulled out her desk chair for Chloe to sit on while she took a seat on the podium in the middle of the room. Chloe had one leg crossed over her knee, shaking it incessantly and looking everywhere but at Marinette. “So,” Marinette began. “A dress. What kind of cut would you like?”

Chloe was already shaking her head. “I don’t know…”

“A princess cut might be nice. Simple. Show off your waist.”

“...okay.”

Marinette nodded stiffly and jotted down. “What about sleeves?”

She didn’t get an answer. Chloe only shrugged her shoulders and covered her mouth with her hand.

She tapped her pen on the paper a couple of times and sighed. “Petal sleeves I think would look nice,” Marinette continued. “Maybe a scoop neckline. And I’ll keep it just under the knees and pick a nice fabric for you so that it’ll drape nicely. I’ve even got some new heels you might like.”

Marinette wasn’t sure if Chloe was at all familiar with what it was like to allow someone to take so many liberties on her behalf, but Marinette supposed that this was also one of those rare times where Chloe couldn’t care less about the product she was asking for. In fact, Marinette could have very well made her a denim dress and paired it with running shoes and Chloe wouldn’t have hesitated before swiping her credit card and carrying it out of the store. So she made her a cup of coffee just like she knew Chloe liked it, and draped one of the blankets Marinette kept in her office over Chloe’s knees.

It was just a guess, but that interview that Marinette was watching last night was looping on the local news this morning. Maybe just an hour ago. Early enough for Chloe to see.

She was running her thumb over some bright yellow fabric, hearing Chloe take huge gulps of her morning coffee and tapping her foot to the beat of the music that Marinette was playing from the speakers on her desk. Chloe wasn’t meant to be so quiet — she exploded through life and made herself known to whoever was close enough to listen, even if lately it had only been Marinette during odd hours where Chloe’s presence could more than fill her boutique. It still left Marinette reeling with the very power of her hours after she’d leave.

Chloe demanded control — control who saw her, control who invaded her space, control what occupied her mind, controlled the time she demanded from people. Marinette suspected she even tried to take control of her grief all these weeks. But if severing her love for a boy who wouldn’t love her back taught Marinette anything in life, it was that control wasn’t something you held onto for long. Because life was a bitch and liked to dictate to you how you should feel and who should ruin solace for you.

Marinette pulled scissors of out of her pocket and cut a small strip of the fabric she was eyeing. She gently laid it over Chloe’s wrist. “Yellow always did look amazing on you,” Marinette muttered. “Made your skin look a little warmer and your hair look brighter. Complements your eyes too. You don’t mind do you?”

No answer other than a head shake.

She grabbed the empty coffee cup out of Chloe’s hands and pulled her out of the seat so that the blanket pooled behind her on the chair. “Come on. I need to do measurements. Up, up, let’s go.”

She’d never touched Chloe like this — mainly because the opportunity never presented itself, but also because their relationship did not require it. It seemed almost prudish to admit, but it did feel personal in a way that Marinette didn’t think was appropriate for the two of them. Lifting her arms to take measurements of her hips, tipping her chin up and pushing on her shoulders to straighten out her posture, and grabbing her waist to spin her around and measure the length of her dress weren’t things that Chloe and Marinette did. It might’ve been something Marinette and Alya did, especially if Alya was too distracted by her broken engagement and the coolness of her ex to even put in the effort to move her limbs herself. But Marinette was out of her element. Usually, you had people on call who were experts at dealing with this sort of thing.

Chloe came to Marinette instead, and Marinette wasn’t quite sure how much meaning she was meant to ascribe to that.

She waved Chloe off of the podium and took a seat on her desk to put Chloe’s measurements into her sketchbook and start sketching out a bare-boned outline of the dress. Chloe didn’t look like she was going anywhere anytime soon, so Marinette didn’t think she’d mind sitting there in the tailoring room with her while she worked. Chloe poured herself another cup of coffee, dragged the blanket and the chair until it was leaned up against Marinette’s desk, and idly watched her sketch. “Can I ask you something?”

Marinette didn’t look up from her sketchbook and lifted her chin. “What is it?”

“Have you ever cheated on someone?”

She stopped immediately and dropped her pencil into the crease of her notebook. Marinette looked at Chloe to see if this was one of things she did where she started pretending to get too personal to try and tease good stories out of Marinette. Ever since she caved and told Chloe about the girl she’d let stay the night and had to sneak out of her room in her _parent’s house_ — which reduced Chloe to an impressive heap of hysterical laughter on the floor — it became her favorite pastime. But this wasn’t a day for kidding around, and Chloe’s face told Marinette that much.

She let out a sharp gust of air and tucked her loose hair behind her ears. “Well, shit…”

Chloe leaned an elbow on the desk. “So I’m guessing that’s a yes.”

Marinette could’ve easily shut the conversation down at that moment, but the topic was too reminiscent of all of the ruminations Marinette indulged in about Chloe’s recent social upheaval and she was so tempted to just dig her nose straight in and be nosy right back. It took her a long minute of silence to answer, but Marinette eventually nodded. “Yes. Just once. Why?”

Chloe bit hard into her bottom lip. “Were you ever caught?”

Marinette winced when she answered. “...yeah.” Chloe nodded in response, probably her muted version of empathy.

It couldn’t have been more than a few months into her first year of university, around the time where she’d sworn off Adrien for good and had regretfully realized that feelings were a lot more difficult to purge and required much more than just determination and willpower. She was lonely and starved for attention, and it felt good to date, kiss, and have sex with someone who seemed to genuinely like her and could hopefully glaze over the feelings that she was still trying to kill. But the appeal of a boyfriend wore off after the first month once she felt her feelings plateauing and watched his own inflate. He kept asking for confessions she couldn’t in good conscience offer and asking for feelings she didn’t even know how to form. Ironically, the night she was contemplating breaking things off with him after only five weeks of seeing him was the night Alya dragged her out to a club to shake off the mid-year stress.

Marinette had too much wine, found a handsome blond whose name or face she couldn’t remember, and pulled him into the back hallway where she’d all but let him stick his hands down the front of her pants and nearly take her right there. He reminded her of Adrien and it was too easy to relent.

She didn’t know that Alya had invited her boyfriend to surprise Marinette that night, and Marinette’s boyfriend didn’t know that she was having second thoughts. He’d stormed off and they’d broken up the next morning.

Chloe started chipping off her old manicure and letting the paint flake onto the floor. “What did you say to them?” Chloe muttered. “When they caught you. What did you say?”

Marinette lifted her shoulders helplessly and tapped her pen against her notebook. “Nothing needed to be said. Things like that speak for themselves.”

That made Chloe laugh — a hollow, bitter laugh that sounded so sarcastic but left Chloe with tears in her eyes. She swiped at the corners of her eyes and smirked. “You know, I asked Adrien the same thing last night,” she admitted. “Of course, he’s never done anything like that. But I asked him what I should’ve said anyway. What was the _best_ thing to say. And he says that the most important thing is to make sure it’s done gently. To keep their feelings intact and to make sure they walk out unscathed.”

She threw her hands up in the air. “But that’s because Adrien doesn’t know how to hurt people. Doesn’t know how to just be frank and say things that sting. He couldn’t if he tried.” Chloe turned to Marinette and pointed at her, running her tongue over her back teeth. “Now you’re telling me that _you_ think nothing needs to be said?”

Marinette rolled her eyes and turned her body to face Chloe’s completely. “Why are you asking all this?” she asked shortly.

“Because you’re a bitch,” Chloe said matter-of-factly. “And that’s a good thing. You don’t mince words with people when you know there’s something they need to hear. You laid into me all during school because you’re not afraid of doing what’s right. So I’m asking you...what did you say?”

Marinette wasn’t sure she liked the supposed compliment, but she evaded it for now. “Since when are you concerned about doing the right thing?”

“It doesn’t concern me,” Chloe clarified. “But I’m smart enough to know what situations call for it.”

The truly irrevocably bitter part of Marinette wanted to say that when it came to this, there was no “right” or “gentle” way of explaining yourself. It was ugly — ugly because it was hard to look at and unable to be explained away with simple pleasantries. So many people she’d met in her life considered infidelity a deal breaker for that exact reason. There was a shortage of good excuses, good explanations, and humanizing context that could make any of it better. The only thing you could hope for was that apologies, promises, and pacts of trust were strong enough to endure all of that rot.

Because if you didn’t hope hard enough, you got the filth. Filth was Marinette being screamed at in the middle of a crowded club with her friends watching. Filth was Chloe being plastered across every celebrity and gossip blog in France and watching her ex-fiance brush her off so cooly on television.

“I told him I was drunk,” Marinette finally said. “I told him I wasn’t in in love with him. I was lonely, and...I did what I did was because I was still heartbroken and still hung up on someone who would never measure up to him. He had no chance, and that was the truth. He said nothing. He left. And then I was alone.”

Chloe licked her lips. “Did he trash your apartment after that or something?”

Marinette only snorted because it was easier than letting past wrongs weigh heavily on her again. “No, although I probably deserved it. I messed up. Really, really badly. I apologized and felt terrible about it, but there’s never a good way of admitting to that sort of thing. It is what it is. Most times, you’re going to get a bad reaction and you just have to deal with that no matter what you end up saying.”

That kept Chloe silent for a long moment, and Marinette didn’t think that any of her stories had ever captivated her attention like this one did, like Marinette finally said the thing that Chloe had been waiting to hear. “Did you ever seem him again?” she finally said.

“No. Never again.” Marinette nudged her knee against Chloe’s arm. “Did you wind up talking to him like Adrien said you should’ve?”

Chloe tucked the blanket around her legs. “Well, it was way too late to follow his advice even if I wanted to. But what do you think?”

Marinette tilted her head and relented the point and turned back to her sketch. “Fair enough.”

It wasn’t clear what Chloe had been trying to accomplish, but the conversation had ended there as if she’d gotten all that she wanted out of it. Marinette had used the silence to finish up her sketch, rip if out of her notebook, and staple it to the order form so that she could add on it later. This was pretty much a commission with unlimited creative license as far as Marinette was concerned and she’d have to do some thinking later on what Chloe wouldn’t immediately turn her nose up at. An interesting challenge, but one that Marinette would probably appreciate in the middle of the week once her work got dull.

She started calculating pricing and idly watched Chloe look through her cellphone. “Was she worth it?”

Chloe turned her head. “Hm?”

“What you did,” Marinette clarified. “Was she worth it?”

Chloe’s head whipped around quicker than Marinette could blink, and that unadulterated hatred came out in a flash of defensiveness. Marinette actually cowered away from it for once, and recognized it as one of those rare moments where she’d gone too far. Everyone, even Chloe, had people they cared about, people they wanted to defend. But bleeding that out on the floor in front of people required a kind of familiarity that Marinette couldn’t tell if she’d earned yet.

She counted three inhales and exhales before Chloe clicked her tongue against her back teeth and smiled cruelly. “You don’t have enough points to unlock that answer, sweetheart.” She got up from her chair, kept the blanket around her waist, and walked back to the front of the store to sit on the couch and probably kill more time until the shop opened and she could make her exit.

Marinette felt like she should’ve been annoyed, but she watched her go and was still amazed that, even while everything exploded around her, that girl kept her chin up and her shoulders back like she was strutting through the world with nothing to be ashamed of. All this time, Marinette confused it for conceit and cockiness, and maybe it still was. But there was something brave about it, something enticing about it. Something that made her want to stare and marvel at it. Marinette couldn’t imagine being able to make something so exhausting look so beautifully effortless.

Because even with her blanket trailing behind her, even with her yawning and her sniffling, even with her staring at the floor and offering none of her usual deprecating quips to liven up the morning, Marinette found her gorgeous.

* * *

Marinette would be a horrid liar if she said she didn’t find Chloe attractive. It had started in lycée when she realized that personalities and appearances were wholly different monsters that didn’t both have to appeal to you in order for the people they lived inside to bewitch you. It was why Marinette could sneer and hiss at Chloe with complete sincerity, and why she also found herself biting her lips when she watched Chloe bite hers first.

For a long time, Marinette couldn’t decipher whether the things she felt were envy or fascination, whether the strange fixation that Marinette had with the slope of Chloe’s neck or the swell of her hips were because she was jealous, or because she wanted so desperately to slide her hands across all the smooth softness. Boring holes into the back of her head during class out of pettiness turned into this strange dance of deciding whether she was picking out flaws or letting her eyes float where they wanted purely out of self-indulgence.

It got to the point where she stopped trying to ignore the attraction and instead decided to focus on it almost exclusively. It was far easier to see Chloe as a person with wonderful genes that Marinette could privately admire while still conceding her terrible behavior instead of trying to reconcile the two into one expansive impression. She didn’t want to crush on her, didn’t think she could ever live with herself if she did, and made it a point to distance herself as much from the deeper inner workings of Chloe Bourgeois as she could.

On the days where she wasn’t driven to her saturation point, Marinette paid her not a shred of attention. Entire days would go by, and if you asked Marinette what Chloe wore one day, or what high brow party she was going to that weekend, Marinette wouldn’t even be able to recall the memory.

There wasn’t ever a time where Marinette thought she would come to regret that decision, but here she was, sitting in her office, staring at the beginnings of a canary yellow dress, and having absolutely no idea what she was meant to do with it.

Normally, these sorts of projects were almost too specific. Most people who came for custom tailoring knew exactly what they wanted, sometimes right down to the thread count. It left Marinette with a very limited margin for creativity, but it was a worthy sacrifice considering how much extra revenue she was able to pull in. No one had ever come in and just asked her to make a dress, any dress, and swipe their card without looking at the price.

It could’ve been considered almost done if Marinette wanted to just clock in the bare minimum. She just needed to finish adjusting the skirt and make sure it hung the way she wanted it to and she’d have a dress for her — a rather plain dress, but a dress nonetheless. It’s not like Chloe really cared what she was asking for anyway.

But Marinette was currently staring at a desk full of embroidery swatches, old sketches, new sketches, and look books she’s saved over the years because it had to have something else. It _needed_ something else. Something unique that screamed Chloe.

A dress was such a small thing, and maybe Marinette was going out of her way for silly reasons that probably wouldn’t make a difference at the end of the day. But Marinette knew that Chloe and wretchedness just didn’t go together — not for someone that proud and unapologetic. Because had Chloe done what she did for the attention or for the Instagram followers, she’d be out there owning it, creating a narrative, using the bad publicity to pump up her image like she was always wont to do.

She wouldn’t run out into the world looking vulnerable and abandoned and come to Marinette of all people like she was the last person she could talk to — the last person who could offer her some reprieve from whatever torment she wasn’t telling anyone about.

There was no way that Marinette couldn’t step in and try to ease the burden just a little — even if it was as simple as finally bringing an honest to God smile to the girl’s face because she made something with her in mind. Made something that was Chloe personified. Made something because she was taking the time to consider a person and not a celebrity whose only entertainment value were the chinks in her armor. Even Chloe deserved that much.

But Marinette had shoved her into a dark box and realized she’d burned all bridges leading back to the possibility of getting to know her.  

Chloe sat in her boutique almost every day and laughed about their school fights. Reminisced about the silly crushes she had growing up and cackled when Marinette’s matched up with hers. Poked through Marinette’s stock room and scurried off with clothes and accessories she wasn’t supposed to take. Marvelled at Marinette’s full register and wondered why she worked so hard. Came to Marinette asking for warm dresses to wear on cold rainy days. All that was easy with low stakes and little to lose.

When it came to Chloe personally — what she loved, what she hated, precious memories, things that scared her, feelings she cherished, people she longed for but couldn’t have — Marinette had nothing. Her mind was still so used to seeing Chloe as a thing to ignore.

And maybe all this agonizing wasn’t just about putting a thoughtful touch on a dress. Maybe along the way, Marinette was looking for one small thing that could build a bridge back to Chloe. One small thing that Marinette could anchor to that might make Chloe see that she wasn’t someone she needed to be wary of.

That amidst this whole circus act of scandals, rumors, harsh words, and constant demands for explanations that Chloe didn’t want to give, Marinette was someone she could trust.

* * *

“Okay, let’s be clear. This shit dies with you two, alright?”

Marinette adjusted her tablet against her pillow and saw that Nino was crouched on the floor in front of his laptop, still in his dress shirt and with his tie undone and slung over the back of his neck. He was frantically swiping through his phone while Adrien, on the other side of her split screen, was still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and sitting up in his bed. “Did someone assassinate the president that you’re video chatting us at two in the morning?”

“Ditto, I have to open up early tomorrow,” Marinette complained.

“Alright, fine, bad timing, I know. But this is serious,” Nino emphasized, looking straight into his webcam. “You two cannot tell _anyone_ about this. This gets out, it’s gonna blow up in the freaking news.”

Adrien frowned. “...did _you_ assassinate the president?”

“Dude, shut up. I’m serious. I really think you two need to see this.”

Marinette yawned. “Alright, slow down, start from the beginning.”

Nino sighed and braced his hands on the top of his head. “Okay, okay. So, you know I had a gig tonight at some charity benefit at Le Grand Paris. Huge deal, a lot of community organizers and social media activists, awesome commission. So because it’s _their_ hotel, the Bourgeois’s would look like assholes if they didn’t show up and say something. So they were there.”

“Yeah, I know, Chloe came to my apartment beforehand absolutely dreading the thing,” Adrien supplied. “What happened?”

“So the mayor gave me a suite upstairs for my equipment, and I left the party to head up and change out the batteries for my camera.” He winced. “I was admittedly recording a video to post on Instagram at the time, but not the point! Guess who I saw on the upper floors?”

Marinette decided to humor him. “I’m guessing Chloe and her father based on how much you’re freaking out. Point, Nino?”

He turned his phone to the camera and started playing a video. “Check this out.”

It started with Nino adjusting his tie in the camera and saying something to his followers that Marinette couldn’t understand through the speakers of her tablet. Nino was walking backwards and had turned a corner only to find Chloe shouting at her father at the end of the empty hallway.

Nino ducked behind a table and flipped the camera around so that he could zoom in on the scene. Mayor Bourgeois’s back was to the camera, but Marinette could just see the tense features on Chloe’s face as she turned her gaze and tightly gripped her flute of champagne. Nino was too far away to pick up any words from their conversation, but Chloe’s father was raising his voice and moving his hands like he was lecturing her about something serious. Judging by how bunched up her posture looked, it didn’t look like it was any news or information that Chloe wanted to hear.

Marinette squinted at the footage that mainly consisted of them arguing back and forth for a couple of minutes before Mayor Bourgeois said something that had Chloe snapping her head up and glaring more fiercely at her father than Marinette could ever recall. She wasted no time throwing her drink in her father’s face, tossing her champagne glass in the corner of the hallway where it shattered to pieces, and turning to leave, throwing a nasty curse over her shoulder as she left. Her father was shouting for her to come back here while he pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and started wiping his face. But she was already pulling her heels off, forgoing the elevators, and going into the stairwell. The camera shook as Nino got up from his hiding spot, headed back the way he came, and ended the video.

Adrien was wide awake now, blinking into the camera. “You did not film all that…”

“Look, I’m sorry, it’s the videographer in me, I always have a camera up,” he defended.

“You’re not giving this to anyone, are you?” Adrien demanded.

“Dude, no, I’m not a gossip. The three of us are the only ones who’ve seen this. Why do you think I didn’t call Alya? Like I love the chick but she can’t keep her mouth shut about stuff like this. She’s a reporter, she’d jump at the chance to slip this to any of her gossip column friends. I figured you two should know first before I did anything with it. You two are the only people she hangs out with anymore.”

Marinette felt her chest aching. “I’ve never seen her curse at her father like that…”

“She doesn’t usually,” Adrien said. “She adores him.”

“Do they ever get into fights like that?”

“No,” Adrien assured. “He overlooks a lot in order to keep Chloe happy. If he’s scolding her like that it’s because she did something beyond any hope of justification, even by his standards.”

“Oh come on, you can’t tell me he hasn’t scolded her once before this,” Nino groaned. “This is Chloe we’re talking about.”

“I’m serious. She either stomps her feet, bats her lashes, and gets her way because she knows he’s not serious, or she brushes him off and ignores him because she knows he won’t follow through. It’s like a game with the two of them. He pretends to be obstinate and never follows through, and Chloe’s turned playing him into an art by now.”

“You don’t think…” Nino began. “I mean...this thing is two months out already, you’d think they’d let it go.”

“She’s been off for the past couple of weeks,” Marinette said. “She comes to my store and doesn’t even buy anything. Just sits there on her phone moping or watching me work. It’s beyond unsettling, something else must have happened.”

Adrien shrugged. “It’s been quiet on my end too. She hasn’t been going out much lately.”

“So something else happened then? That’s a whole new brand of pissed, what the hell’s up her ass now?”

“If it was obvious, she wouldn’t be finding private places to pick fights with her father, now would she?”

Nino was raking his fingers through his hair and gripping it at the roots, a look of conflict on his face that Marinette knew all too well and recognized as a conflict that she herself had to inevitably make room for. Nino’s low tolerance for nonsense rivaled Alya’s, and Chloe was nonsense incarnate. Yet Marinette could tell all this news was slowly starting to raise threads of doubt — like maybe Chloe wasn’t quite so transparent as he’d assumed, that maybe certain situations demanded a certain amount of pity for everyone, no matter who they were, no matter how much they did or didn’t deserve things.

“Look, she worships you, Adrien. And weird as this is, she apparently trusts Marinette of all people enough to hide her from a paparazzi slaughter as best as she can. I figured you guys should know, and that you’d probably want to talk to her.”

Marinette didn’t see what good talking would do at this point. Chloe looked sick to death of talking, looked like she’d be fine not saying another word about what she did and what people had to say about her. It’s probably why Chloe spent so much time pulling stories out of Marinette because it was probably a welcome reprieve from what her social life had always been.

But seeing Chloe so livid reignited that need to do something, and Marinette was again finding herself poorly equipped for something that wasn’t her business and probably wouldn’t yield under her meager effort, despite her sincerity. She thought about the eviscerated dress in her office and sighed. “I don’t know how much help I’ll be, to be honest.”

“I don’t think she could afford to be picky right now.”

Marinette frowned at Nino. “What do you mean?

“Chloe is losing people from her corner,” Adrien clarified, stress starting to replace the tiredness in his voice. “Her father has always been her biggest crutch, and even he’s disappointed in her. If she’s daring to fight him on this, whatever _this_ is, that means it’s serious. She needs all the people she can get right now, and she’d be silly to turn that away.”

* * *

It took three more days for Marinette to have an epiphany. She wrote it down on the inside of her wrist before she forgot it, grabbed Chloe’s phone number off of her order form, and told her to come pick the dress up Saturday evening. After closing, she took two hundred euros out of the register and practically ran the ten blocks to the bead and jewelry supplier that knew her well enough to give her a good deal on a last minute rush order.

It was almost stupidly ambitious, especially since Marinette was only giving herself a couple of days to get it done. But she knew the time crunch would keep her from thinking long enough to impulsively decide to abandon the project altogether. So she gave her cashiers some generous overtime over the next few days while Marinette holed herself in her office with nothing but a few pastries from the cafe across the street and her coffee maker chugging along without any breaks.

Saturday night left her with her neck aching and her fingers covered in needle pricks, but all of her rushing hadn’t detracted from the quality of the work in the least. If anything, beaded embroideries always found the time to amaze even her because there was something about all the jewels and rhinestones shimmering with the fabric as it moved that even an imagination like hers couldn’t properly replicate. The technical part of her brain always sold that part short.

Nothing in her boutique was quite this glamorous, but this was no holds barred for Marinette’s standards, and she’d done it on purpose. It was that kind of over the top effort that she felt would get Chloe’s attention and shock her into a silence that would prevent her from pulling out any of her wise ass remarks.

She bit on her thumbnail and followed the path of the embroidery for a few seconds longer — silently praying that she wouldn’t find any mistakes that were too late to fix — when the door to the boutique opened and the sound of Chloe’s shoes clicking against the floors echoed through the empty store.

She looked cleaner today than she had for the past couple of weeks — better rested and fresh faced, heels instead of boots or trainers, pressed pants and a blouse instead of sweatshirts and jackets. It made Marinette smile, and she half expected her to throw her bag down on the couch, start pulling cardigans off of her hangers, and begin rattling off about the depressingly ugly bags that the boutique three doors down had in their windows and how she hoped Marinette had something better.

Marinette smirked. “You look nice. Where _do_ you get your clothing?”

Chloe rolled her eyes, and let out the smallest of smiles. “Oh, some nothing little boutique owned by this boorish, annoying woman I used to know from school. You wouldn’t know her.” She put her bag down near the registers, threw her trench coat across the couch, and crossed her arms over her chest. “I left my driver out front so I can’t stay. But that dress is ready, yeah?”

“It’s ready when you are. You can try it on back here. If something doesn’t fit right or you want me to make any changes or adjustments, just tell me and I’ll have it fixed up for you as soon as I can.”

She looked down at her phone and tapped her nails against the screen. “Will it take long?”

“Depends on you and how good of a job I did.” Marinette waved her into the tailoring room. “Come. I’ll show it to you.”

Chloe seemed almost unenthused, like this was just a stop on her way home. Marinette was sure Chloe was here only to say that she didn’t throw away the money asking for the dress in the first place. It made Marinette’s chest tighten up in a nervousness that she hadn’t felt since she was in university and submitting her final assignments to the critical scrutiny of her professors. Chloe felt very much like that — like this lofty person that Marinette simply had to impress. She pressed her fingers into the material of the dress a few times before she rolled the dress form from behind the folding screen. “What do you think?”

Chloe looked up the same moment that she took a step forward as if she meant to just take the dress off of the model and change into it as quick as she could so that she could be on her way. But Marinette saw the exact moment where she stopped in her tracks as if she’d been stunned into stillness. Her eyes widened a touch as her eyes started darting up and down the dress, and her mouth opened to let out a soft, awed breath at the sight of what was in front of her. Marinette suddenly felt all of those nerves unfurl and warm her body with satisfaction.

“I remember,” Marinette began. “There was a whole year where we had to sit next to each other in our history class. The two of us were so furious, but our teacher did it so that we’d get along. Not that it did much of that, but there is one thing that I still remember from all those days I sat next to you.” Marinette smiled fondly and looked down at the dress. “You always doodled bumblebees in the margins of your notes. Every single day.”

The bodice of the dress was covered in one of the most elaborate embroidery jobs Marinette had ever undertaken. It was a swirling wonder of yellow, orange, red, and green beads that wrapped around the waist to mimic grass and curled up and around the front of the bodice in an array of colorful swirls that were meant to mimic a sun and flowers. She even ripped out the original petal sleeves she’d promised and replaced the material with a few layers of chiffon to make it actually look like translucent flower petals wrapping around the arms. That short section had taken her most of the two days to finish, but she felt pride bubble up inside her when Chloe stepped forward to touch hesitant fingers against the beaded designs, as if she were afraid she were going to ruin the dress if she handled it too roughly.

Marinette purposefully picked a material that would allow for a loose, pleated design so that she could embroider a long path of bumblebees that was laid out in a way that made it seem like the bumblebees were hiding behind the folds and reappearing once more. She’d found a gorgeous set of yellow and black jewels that were easily sewn into the fabric to make little glimmering dots of bumblebees all over the skirt of the dress. She mapped out a swirling, whimsical path for all of her bumblebees with black and green beads that her jewel supplier let her run away with for free. All of the bumblebee paths stretched around the skirt and combined together to meet in the middle of the front of the waist where Marinette’s garden design on the bodice started.

She’d even managed to snag a necklace at the jewelry store with a pendant of a bee sitting on the petal of a buttercup. Marinette pulled out a pair of canary yellow heels from her stockroom and finished everything off with a handbag that looked very much like the one Marinette used to carry when she was younger, except this one was yellow and covered in flowers and bees.

Chloe was crouching in front of the dress, letting her fingertips map out the bumblebee paths while Marinette started to unzip the dress from the back. “I know it was a bit of an assumption on my part, but I hope you like it,” Marinette smiled. “You should try it on though. It’d be a shame if it didn’t fit.”

She was licking her lips, blinking at the designs, and sliding her fingers in between the folds of the dress as if she were still looking for any other surprises that Marinette may have hidden. “I don’t want to ruin it…” she breathed out.

“It’s sturdier than it looks,” Marinette promised. “Besides, it’s meant to wear. Go change behind the folding screen while I finish locking up the register. Then come out and show me how it fits.”

Marinette didn’t think she’d ever seen Chloe handle anything so carefully before — the way she draped the dress over her arm and gently spread her hand out against the beads made it seem like she was terrified of breaking it if she clutched it too tightly. Even when she went behind the folding screen, she smoothed the dress out a few times when she draped it over the top before moving to take off her own clothes.

She was counting the money in the register and locking up all the display cabinets when Marinette saw Chloe come to the front of the store in the dress and the heels she’d picked out for her. Marinette was right — yellow looked amazing on her. Chloe was clutching the purse and the pendant in her hands and turned her back to Marinette. “I can’t zip it up by myself.”

Marinette led her in front of the mirror and moved behind her to pull the zip up. She hadn’t meant to stand quite so close to her, but Marinette wanted to look over Chloe’s shoulder to see her reflection in the mirror. One of the simpler pleasures in life was watching people see themselves in beautiful pieces of clothing for the first time. There was something transformative about it, like you had to take a few beats to even recognize the person staring back at you, and Marinette loved watching those few seconds of recognition when Chloe realized that yes, this dress was hers and this is what she looked like wearing it.

The dress closed without any resistance, and Marinette let her hands sit there for a moment, marvelling at how absolutely gorgeous Chloe looked with everything on. It made her lick her lips for a moment and realize she was falling back into old habits again — letting the more self-indulgent parts of her come to the forefront and struggle with the enormity of her feelings towards another beautiful woman standing only inches away from her. She tapped the inside of Chloe’s wrist and watched her hand jump at the contact. “Let me put the necklace on for you.”

Chloe was staring at Marinette through the mirror and watched her reach around Chloe’s neck. Chloe gulped when the cool metal touched her sternum and Marinette decided to take her time fastening the clasp on the back. “I don’t remember paying for accessories…” Chloe mumbled.

“Consider it me getting carried away. It’s on me, I promise.” Out of habit, she smoothed her hands over the tops of Chloe’s shoulders and marvelled at the feel of the chiffon and the bare skin her fingers slid against. She moved to stand next to her in the mirror before she got any other ideas. “I hope the whole bumblebee thing wasn’t too off base.”

Chloe smiled — actually smiled for the first time in weeks — and watched the reflection of her hands as they unconsciously smoothing out the skirt. “No, it was a good guess. They’re my favorite.”

Maybe it was because Marinette was too doped up on pride and relief at seeing Chloe’s reaction to all of her hard work that she’d taken that small insignificant fact about her and locked it away in memory. She wouldn’t let herself forget it.

Chloe stayed staring at her reflection for a long while before she blinked and seemed to come back to herself for a moment. She turned away from her reflection and sized Marinette up immediately. “Why did you go through all the trouble?”

Marinette frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You didn’t have to do this much. You _know_ that you didn’t have to do this much. You did anyway. Why?”

“Are you accusing me of something? You asked for a dress, and I made you one. It’s simple.”

“Bullshit,” Chloe sighed. “This isn’t simple. Nothing about this is simple or circumstantial. Why did you go through all of this effort _for me?_ ”

It didn’t do well to lie to Chloe, not when she was standing so close, so Marinette saved time and answered honestly. “I wanted to do something nice.”

“Because you pity me.”

“No, because I wanted to make you feel better,” Marinette explained. “This isn’t a pity present, I didn’t make this for you to show you that I feel bad. I made it for you because I think you deserved it. You deserve to have a break from all the rot you’ve been wading through for two months, and you deserve to have someone do something for you that doesn’t involve screwing you over.”

Chloe snorted humorlessly. “That’s not your job…”

“No it isn’t,” Marinette said. “And I did it anyway. Because it was important that I do it anyway.”

It wasn’t computing for her, and in a way Marinette understood that. There was no reason for her to do anything this considerate for someone who bullied most of her class and fought with her with a kind of ferocity that Marinette only wished she was exaggerating when she reminisced about it. It would’ve been so easy to keep Chloe in the same box she’d always kept her in and take comfort in that. Chloe was annoyingly stubborn, and it was frustrating just as much as it was satisfying. But Marinette had long figured out that it was useless to hold out for the hope that the people you knew when you were younger were the same people as you met them now. Chloe ten years ago was still awful, still infuriating, still capable of making Marinette lose any semblance of control and consideration.

The Chloe now was lonely and deserved to have someone who wanted to understand. After seeing the footage of her fighting with her father, Marinette realized just how precious of a commodity that was for her.

Chloe swallowed and her voice was completely absent of any venom. “We aren’t friends.”

Marinette smiled sadly. “No. We aren’t.”

Chloe bit down on her lip again and turned back to the display windows at the front of the store where a long black car was still waiting for her on the curb. She tapped her fingers against the crook of her elbow, and Marinette watched her shoulders bunch up as if the very weight of whatever she was ruminating about was straining even the muscles of her body. She blew out a huge breath, shook her arms a little bit, and spun around to face Marinette again. “Do you want to go out?”

Marinette’s eyes widened. “Out?”

“Yeah, out,” Chloe said quickly, as if her nerves were making her push the words out as fast as she could. “It’s Saturday night. Bars are open. We could get a drink.”

“A drink,” Marinette repeated. “Like the two of us. A drink together.”

Chloe rolled her eyes. “Yes, Marinette, that’s typically what the word _we_ means.”

“Sorry, sorry, I’m just…” Marinette felt the words get clogged in her throat as she tried to force her mouth to make the shapes it was supposed to be making. “This is...I mean...new. This is new.”

“Yeah, well,” she grumbled. “You had to go and be extra _as usual_ , so now I’d look like a bitch if I didn’t thank you.”

Marinette smirked and nodded. “Ah, yes. Of course.”

Chloe jutted a thumb behind her. “Look, I’ll even give you a ride. My driver’s not gonna mind being out for a few hours longer.” She grinned. “See now this is _me_ being nice.”

“A new skill for you, huh?”

“It’s making my skin crawl a little bit, but I’m hoping some liquor will shake the feeling.” Chloe moved to pick up her coat and started to put it back on. “Come on. We both look like we need it. First round’s on me. Besides, it gives me an excuse to wear this out the store.”

They never agreed to spend time with each other outside of the boutique’s closing hours. It was an unspoken barrier that the two of them had erected and made no efforts to break down. It was oddly exhilarating to be able to see Chloe outside of this place purely for the novelty of the situation. She knew that Chloe was quickly losing track of the people she could confide in to understand and sympathize with her plights, and she wondered if this was a muted way of saying that Marinette could become or already was one of those people. Perhaps Chloe didn’t want to go home after her fight with her father. Perhaps Chloe just needed some sort of company because drinking alone was pitiful. Either way, Marinette knew she wasn’t going to say no.

Because, despite all of those possible reasons for Chloe to extend the invitation that Marinette could’ve spend the rest of the evening analyzing, she realized that she’d gone and bewitched herself for creating something that Chloe looked so positively stunning in. She wanted to see her wear it tonight. Wanted to watch the dress move around her legs while she slid into the car or perched herself on a bar stool. Whether that was because of a sense of pride for her work or due to other more complicated feelings deciding to surface at the strangest of times, Marinette wouldn’t take the time to ponder.

Marinette gripped the keys in her pocket and nodded. “Give me five minutes to lock up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read/like/reblog the chapter on Tumblr here  
> Follow me at breeeliss.tumblr.com


	3. Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please observe the rating on this story. It will begin to earn its right for this chapter and the ones to come.

For some reason, when Marinette pictured Chloe in a bar, she pictured her traipsing off to an exclusive, needlessly ostentatious lounge bar with fine leather couches, chilled chardonnay waiting on every table, and black label bottles stacked from floor to ceiling behind a pristine bar counter. The sort of place where all you needed to do was tap a wad of euros on the doorframe in order to be led off to private little rooms where you were free to trade around socialite gossip. Even though Chloe didn’t refute the stereotype, she did at the very least surprise Marinette by taking her to a regular old jazz bar about ten minutes away from the boutique that Marinette had taken Alya to on several occasions. “The music’s relaxing,” Chloe shrugged. “Plus there’s no way I’m wasting money on buying you a black label drink. I’m not that nice.”

It was still early enough on Saturday that the bar wasn’t crowded, and the band on stage was playing a slow, mellow number that was quiet enough to let the murmuring from everyone’s conversations hum audibly and pleasantly through the air. They sat down at the far end of the bar, furthest from the stage and from the door, while Chloe pulled out a credit card and opened up a tab for herself. She cradled her chin in her hands, nudged Marinette’s leg with the toe of her heel, and gestured to the bottles behind the bar counter in invitation. 

Marinette picked a strong cocktail off the house specials menu — something with white rum, dry vermouth, and bitters that left her throat buzzing — while Chloe asked for a quick shot of rum before getting the same cocktail Marinette had asked for. Marinette was chewing on her straw and smiling incredulously at Chloe knocking back the liquor with an ease she certainly hadn’t been expecting. “You know,” Marinette commented. “When you said drinks, I assumed you were talking about the fruity, frilly kind you could nurse for an entire night.”

Chloe glared at her from the corner of her eye and sipped on her cocktail. “Oh shut the fuck up,” she snapped. “If only you knew the week I’ve had. You’d see this as entirely necessary.”

She wondered idly if it was in poor taste to point out that she had a lot more intimate knowledge about how terrible Chloe’s week had been than she probably realized, and that wasn’t even including having a front row seat to Chloe’s moping and wretchedness around her boutique for the past several days. Honestly, Marinette was surprised Chloe hadn’t just bought her own bottle off the shelves to help take the edge off. “Hey, I’m not saying anything,” Marinette teased instead. “You’re talking to a person who’s polished off a bottle of chianti all by herself on more occasions than she’s willing to admit.”

Chloe pointed to her. “See? Alcohol helps…”

Marinette turned her bar stool around so she was leaning back against the counter. “Ah, and to think that ten years after I busted your lip open you’d be inviting me out to drinks. Imagine ten more years in the future. We might actually become Facebook friends.”

“Ugh,” Chloe shivered. “The thought…”

“Maybe when we’re forty we’ll send each other Christmas cards.”

“I will literally burn any Christmas cards you send me. Don’t think I won’t.”

“Well, we’ll obviously have to work up to it. Give it time.”

“Shut up and drink the stupid drink I bought you before I regret all of this.”

Marinette laughed around her straw and took a huge swig of her drink in order to appease her. “I’m just teasing you. You haven’t bickered with me like this in days.”

Chloe scoffed. “You say that like you missed it.”

Marinette shrugged. “I guess I did a little bit. I dunno, I’m used to you being around, so I guess it bothers me when you’re not keeping up with your normal brand of being all entitled and annoying.”

“Gee, thanks, you brat.”

Marinette winked. “Don’t mention it. Seriously, though. Seeing you act all quiet and wretched is deeply unsettling. You look a little better now at least.”

Chloe’s lip quirked up almost too quick for Marinette to catch, but she still counted it as a smile and she took a curious amount of pride in the fact. Chloe wrapped her hands around her glass and drummed her nails against the surface. “Well,” she muttered. “I’m done feeling upset and annoyed and discouraged. It’s unproductive, anyway.”

Marinette nodded and tapped her finger against her own glass. “So is that what this is? Going on as normal?”

“I guess,” Chloe sighed. “Or as normal as normal can be when everything’s just finished going to shit.”

Marinette hummed. “Well,  _ that’s _ not cryptic…”

Chloe looked at her in confusion for a couple of seconds before she shut her eyes, sucked her teeth, and pressed a thumb into her temple. “Oh, shit. I forgot to ask you…”

“Ask me?”

“I wasn’t going over just to get the dress, I needed to talk to you about something,” Chloe explained. 

Marinette blinked. “Well, what’s the something?”

They were interrupted by a small murmur of applause as the band finished their set and carried their instruments off stage. Chloe waited until the next band got up, introduced themselves, and started the music up again before she turned away from the counter, faced Marinette, and crooked her finger towards herself. Marinette raised a brow in suspicion, but Chloe rolled her eyes, pinned her with an exasperated look, and waved her closer again. Marinette gave in and pulled her bar stool closer until their crossed legs were almost touching, leaning her head closer to Chloe’s so that they were close enough to whisper. “What?” Marinette asked again.

Chloe darted her eyes to the bartenders at the other end of the bar, to the tables next to them, and cleared her throat. “I need to ask you for another favor.”

“What, do you want me to help you kill someone?” Marinette asked. “Why all the secrecy? We’re in a bar, no one’s listening.”

“I have every right to be paranoid!” Chloe snapped back. “Unless you know what it’s like to have your cell phone conversations overheard and transcribed for tabloids, I don’t want to hear you complaining.”

“Alright, alright,” Marinette relented. “Chill. What’s the favor?”

Chloe gripped the hem of the skirt to her dress, bunching the fabric in her fists. “It’s less of a favor and more of a word of caution but…has anyone ever come into your boutique asking about me?”

Marinette frowned. “What, like customers?”

“Anyone.”

“No,” Marinette said. “Although, to be honest, lately I’ve been staying away from the registers and the floor to work on commissions, so I wouldn’t know.”

Chloe cursed under her breath and shifted in her seat. “Alright, listen to me. If anyone ever comes into your boutique and asks about me — they want to know where I am, what I’ve been doing, who I’ve been seeing — tell them you don’t know what they’re talking about. You don’t know me. I don’t come to your boutique. You know nothing, alright?”

“Woah, woah,” Marinette whispered. “Where is this coming from?”

“And if they say they’ve seen me inside or they’ve seen me shopping there, just say that all of your customers blend together or something,” Chloe kept on. “You’re a popular boutique they’ll believe it. And if they mention something about the fact that we went to school together, just say that it’s been years since you’ve seen me and you wouldn’t recognize me if I happened to walk inside. And if they mention anything about having pictures or quotes from other people just— ”

“Christ, Chloe, slow down — ”

“Just shut up and listen, Marinette,” Chloe hissed harshly. “If they mention anything about photos and quotes, just say you don’t know what they’re talking about. They’re probably bluffing and trying to get you to incriminate yourself. Just...always say you don’t know. Okay?”

Marinette floundered for a response. “I...But — ”

“ _ Okay? _ ”

For some reason, Marinette couldn’t bring herself to say the words back. Everything came out like a rehearsed speech that Chloe was forcing herself to get through no matter what. Like it mattered that everything was said meticulously. Like it mattered that Marinette heard everything, didn’t interrupt, and agreed. To be honest, it probably did matter, because watching Chloe stare at her fervently — so different from the almost blase way she tried to bribe Marinette the first time she walked into her shop — was starting to give off the impression that Chloe was quickly losing control of the situation, whatever that situation was. Before, it really wasn’t pertinent for Marinette to know. She didn’t need to know Chloe’s business. Talking wasn’t something she could do, wasn’t something she had the right to do, and certainly wasn’t something that was within her purview. 

But this wasn’t a harmless, amusing favor that involved swiping Chloe’s credit card and casually entertaining her for hours at a time. Chloe sounded genuinely worried. As far as Marinette was concerned, all previous bets were off. 

She pursed her lips in thought and shook her head. “No,” Marinette said resolutely. 

Chloe snarled. “ _ No?” _

“No. Not okay. I’m done with this. What the hell is going on with you? Something’s the matter. Something changed. What is it?”

“That is  _ none _ of your business — ”

“You bet it is my business when you’re asking me to lie for you and warning me that journalists are apparently going to be flooding  _ my _ business,” Marinette snapped back. “If you want me to help you, I think I have a right to know why. So enough with your deflecting. You’re telling me what’s going on.”

“Damn it, Marinette! Just promise me!”

“Tell me what’s going on. And then I’ll promise.” 

Chloe gritted her teeth together and pulled her mouth into a scowl, and for a moment Marinette was worried that she was gearing up to tell her off in the middle of the bar or make a bigger fuss than there needed to be. Without thinking, she reached out and grabbed both of Chloe’s wrists before she finished opening her mouth to cut Marinette off. 

“Look I know we’re not friends or anything,” Marinette said. “But you came to me for help a couple of months ago, and I gladly gave it. Because I saw the crap you were going through and wanted to help. I still do. You can trust me. I know you know you can trust me. But you have to tell me what’s going on, otherwise how can this possibly work?”

Chloe narrowed her eyes, but she didn’t move or say anything while her hands clenched and unclenched in her lap. Marinette watched her chew over her words until Chloe exhaled sharply through her nose and snatched her hands back, tucking them into the crooks of her elbows. Her eyes were turned to her empty glass on the counter. “...I don’t think I need to tell you that this stays between us.”

“You actually think I’d go around and spread this?”

“Your best friend is a reporter!” she hissed. 

“Give me some credit!” Marinette complained. “I think I have enough couth to tell what’s gossip worthy material.”

“Fine, fine,” Chloe sighed tiredly. She reached over the counter and snapped her fingers until the bartender came to refill their drinks. “If we’re doing this, I’m going to need more liquor.”

At Chloe’s prompting, they moved to one of the tables in the corner of the bar that was darker and less cluttered with people in order to satiate her paranoia. Marinette even offered to sit facing the door while Chloe crossed her legs and kept herself looking as small as she possibly could while sitting in her chair. They were able to finish off two more drinks before Chloe started to speak. “My father...wants me to make a statement.”

“What kind of statement?”

Chloe sniffed and looked to the ceiling. “Let’s see if I can get this word for word...a statement where I admit that I’ve been acting reckless and foolish. Where I admit that I never really meant to ruin my engagement. I made a terrible mistake and nothing is more important to me than repairing my relationship with my fiance and trying to work again to create our family.”

Marinette winced and asked, even though she knew the answer. “And is any of that true?”

Chloe snorted. “It’s weak, pathetic, insulting, invalidating, and I’d rather swallow nails. I told him to go to Hell.”

Marinette was willing to bet a lot of money that this was the conversation that Nino had accidentally recorded, the one that had Chloe cursing and throwing drinks in her father’s face, but she wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to admit that she’d been privy to that fallout. “So,” she said slowly, trying to tread carefully. “Your kiss with...with that woman. He wants you to say it was just you acting out and being silly. But it wasn’t that. Was it?”

Chloe merely shook her head sadly. “No,” she said. “I’m the daughter of a bureaucrat. I was born to play games. But I don’t play  _ those _ kinds of games.”

There was no mincing her last few words, and Marinette had to wonder just how much meaning was hidden underneath the layers of sensationalism and intrigue plastered across that photo in the papers. Marinette remembered the first time she saw it, remembered immediately knowing that any sort of ogling taking place felt wrong. But that’s because it wasn’t an act or a scandal or some desperate attempt at publicity. It was something that Chloe was absolutely refusing to apologize for. “I don’t get it though,” Marinette said. “Why does he want you to lie? And what does this have to do with what you asked of me?”

“You have to understand,” Chloe explained. “This isn’t….” She sighed in frustration and took a few seconds to collect her words. This time she lifted her head and did her best to look Marinette straight in the eye. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been with women. But I’m not an idiot like everyone else you see in the papers. I’m discreet. And if anyone saw me in public with another woman, they weren’t able to glean anything from that other than it being a brunch date with friends. The only person who had any idea that it was more than that was my father.”

“He knew?” Marinette questioned. “Wait, so why is this only coming up now?”

“Because before it was private and he didn’t care,” Chloe said. “I could’ve been sacrificing infants in the basement of the hotel for all he cared so long as I kept it hushed. He wants to be Prime Minister one day. I can’t be doing anything that would make anyone think badly of us.”

“But now it’s public and he does care. So...you slipped up? And he got upset?”

Chloe snorted. “I didn’t slip up. I’m way too careful for that. No, that...that whole mess...that was on purpose. Wasn’t my best idea, but at least it was intentional.”

Marinette’s head was shaking. “I’m missing something,” she admitted. “Why was that woman different?” She tried to swallow back the next question, but she was in too far to not at least try asking. “Who was she?”

The words looked like they had caught in Chloe’s throat, and for a moment that seemed to have shocked her before she dissolved in a forced sort of laughter that made her cross her arms over her chest and stare down at her arms. Marinette immediately tried to backpedal and lifted both of her hands. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “Sorry, sorry, that really is none of my business…”

Chloe took a huge sip of her drink and shrugged carelessly. “Screw it,” she chuckled. “You’re the only person who knows any of this, might as well go all the way.”

Marinette bit her lip. “Not even…?”

“Who Adrien?” Chloe asked. “Oh, no. I mean, he’s a darling and I love him, but...he wouldn’t understand. Now you on the other hand…”

“Why? Because I’m…”

“Not just because of that,” Chloe smirked. “But because you know that sometimes it’s necessary to be selfish.”

Marinette furrowed her brows. Chloe was staring at her pointedly and Marinette realized suddenly that she was referring to the story she’d told her when she first came to ask for the dress — the one where she’d cheated on her then-boyfriend because of her remaining hangups over Adrien. She wasn’t sure if she liked the fact that Chloe seemed to find value in the fact that Marinette knew how to hurt people, but it seemed like it at least made her a person that Chloe could trust in an ironic way. A person that could understand. Even more than someone who had known her for her entire life. Surely there was significance in that that Marinette was missing. 

It was a moment of weakness that Marinette wasn’t proud of — a time where trying to catch one last taste of the person she still loved was worth hurting another person over. Where her aching and longing justified a betrayal. Where stealing toe curling kisses in dark corners where you thought no one could see was worth it serving as a catalyst to break someone else’s heart. She’d asked her what she said to justify it, if she had decided to try and salvage the other person’s feelings or shatter them in favor of what was the unavoidable truth. Marinette had chosen the latter. Chloe had done the same. 

She leaned in closer to Chloe and licked her lips. “It was Adrien,” she finally admitted. “I was still hung up over Adrien.”

“I figured as much,” Chloe said. “It was obvious to everyone but him how in love with him you were.”

Marinette crossed and uncrossed her ankles, suddenly feeling restless. “At the time...definitely not now, but back then? He was worth it. He was worth the world.” She thought back to the question that she’d asked Chloe on that day, the one she had refused to answer. “Was she worth it?” she asked again. 

Chloe smiled, her voice coming out quieter than Marinette had ever heard it. “Worth the world.”

And just like that, the sincerity of such a short confession left Marinette stunned. Her body warmed with realization, and she had such a strange compulsion to reach out and touch Chloe, if only to show her that everything was alright, that she was here, and yes she did understand, she knew how hard this could be. Raw wounds like this took a very long time to heal, and often never healed properly. But she couldn’t tell if it was just her brain slowly starting to feel all the alcohol she’d been drinking or if she truly did want to wrap Chloe up in her arms, bury her nose in her hair, and just hold her, as if it would make the crack that had just appeared in Chloe’s voice suddenly vanish. 

But instead, Marinette stayed rooted in her seat. “I...who was she? What happened?” she breathed out. 

Chloe sucked in her bottom lip and started to watch her finger trace the rim of her empty glass. “I summered in Germany a few months ago. I met her at the resort I stayed at. She was a waitress at the restaurant. Absolutely gorgeous. She wouldn’t stop staring at me for the whole meal, so I figured, what the hell? I could have fun for one night. So when I got the check, I put my room number on the bottom and waited for her.” 

She paused and laughed to herself. “Except, I don’t think she understood I was asking for sex. She came upstairs with plates of sweets and all these expensive teas from the kitchen. She was all excited, sitting on my couch, complimenting my dress, saying how she loved my accent, and I wanted to throttle her because I didn’t ask for a sleepover. But we just stayed in, and we watched a few of her favorite movies, even though they were all in German and I didn’t understand a damn word of it. We sat together, and she was tucked under my arm and had her nose pressed to my collarbone. She stayed close that whole night, kept saying she loved the perfume I was wearing. And we fell asleep on my couch until the next morning when I asked her out to breakfast. Because….well, why not?

“And we spent the whole summer like that. She, uh...liked to go on the roof of the hotel and smoke. Always talked about going to America and visiting every single state. Annoyingly optimistic. Hated my sarcasm. Thought I wore too much makeup. Loved my hair. She said she wanted to become an opera singer. That one day, when she had enough money, she’d go to school and take real classes and get really good. And she wouldn’t stop smiling. Not for one second. Always saw me, and always had a smile.” 

Chloe’s cheeks were stained with a lovely blush that Marinette figured was half all the alcohol and half the wistful little smile she had on her face as she reminisced like Marinette wasn’t even there. At some point, Marinette had shifted closer to her so that their knees were pressing together underneath the table, almost as if she was physically being pulled into every single, intimate detail that Chloe was weaving. It was all perfectly painted in Marinette’s head, and she never thought she’d see the day where something to vulnerable and tender could come from Chloe’s mouth. “Did you love her?”

“No,” Chloe said quickly. “Not nearly enough time. Maybe if we  _ had _ more time….well. Anyway. I invited her to spend the autumn with me here. I was still sort-of kind-of seeing my ex-fiance at the time, but I wasn’t planning on paying him much mind. Which promptly backfired since, two days after I came back, he proposed after my father pushed him.”

“Your father?”

“We’re the only family we have,” Chloe answered, her words starting to slur and her posture starting to slump. “So, he’s serious about carrying on family names and having grandchildren to make him feel like he has a permanent stamp on this world before he leaves. Or some bullshit like that. So he insisted on the engagement. Thought it’d be good for me. I told him to shove it, that I met someone else, but the minute I told him it was a woman, he didn’t want to hear it. Seriously. Just cut me off, and acted like I said nothing. Said there was no time for my typical temper tantrums. It was time to do as he said for once.”

Marinette scowled. “That’s archaic. It’s not as if you can’t have children and carry on names with a woman.”

“Trust me, my father sees a marked difference between the two,” Chloe sighed. “But I decided to do something. I invited her. To the gala. Told her I was serious about her. Told her I wanted her to stay. That she could live with me, and...I’d help her pay for her singing lessons, and...we could just keep going on like that for as long as we wanted. No discretion. No hiding. No being sneaky. Just the two of us  _ being _ . Period. And....and then I kissed her. Like a fucking idiot.”

And everything had gone downhill from there. Marinette tapped her ankle against Chloe’s. “But you don’t slip up,” Marinette reminded. “So you kissed her that openly on purpose.”

“I assure you, it was a sound idea at the time. I thought she’d say yes.”

Marinette’s chest began to ache. “She...she didn’t?”

Chloe clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Apparently amidst all my lovesick nonsense, I neglected to pick up on the fact that our spending time together was only really acceptable because it was kept secret. Or...I guess I was only fun in private. Or something. Either way, she was pissed at me and wouldn’t answer my calls or my texts or anything. I imagine she’s in Germany right now, although who knows where she went.”

“So that’s why no one knows who she is,” Marinette realized. “And...then you…”

“I never told,” Chloe finished. “I couldn’t be spiteful towards her. I couldn’t if I tried. I can be pissed at her for being scared, and I can be pissed at her for being willing to leave me so easily, because at the end of the day she was a coward. But I couldn’t throw her to the press. No one deserves that. At least I’m used to it.”

She sounded so bitter, so fed up, so angry, but so accepting of what had happened. And it wasn’t fair, and Marinette wanted to scream it from the rooftops that it wasn’t fair because she was sitting there getting mad  _ for _ Chloe and feeling all of the frustration like it was hers. It made her throat feel tight and clogged because it was just too terrible, too horrible to love someone so much and have them throw it away right in front of you. At least Marinette never really had Adrien to begin with. She couldn’t help it. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. 

“Don’t,” Chloe grumbled. “Don’t you do that — ”

“I don’t care,” Marinette pleaded. “I don’t care if it wasn’t my fault or if it won’t help or whatever. I’m still sorry. You didn’t deserve that. You don’t deserve this, not any of it.”

Chloe stared at her like she was a curious little oddity that she hadn’t noticed before and scoffed. “It’s fine. It’s done anyway.”

It wasn’t a satisfying answer, not in the least. But Chloe wasn’t like Marinette’s friends who would be willing to be angry or be willing to cry about the things that hurt them and the things that didn’t go their way. Chloe, as ostentatious and loud and confident as she was, at the end of the day, was such a meticulously private person where it counted. Her feelings weren’t things she shared easily, and when it came to matters like this, all of her crying and frustration would only ever come out when she was alone. 

Chloe grew quiet and it seemed that Marinette had gotten all she was going to get about that part of the story. She shook her head and tried to stave off some of the drunkenness to follow the rest properly. “Okay,” she said to herself. “All that I follow. I still don’t understand what that has to do with the favor you asked me.”

“Oh, that’s the best goddamn part,” Chloe snorted. “Made the mistake of mentioning that I‘ve been getting my clothes from you to keep the heat off. But apparently, in whatever screwed up planet that man lives on, my father seems to think I’m off keeping busy with foolishness again.”

Marinette frowned. “Meaning…?”

She smirked cruelly. “He seems to think that he has to worry about  _ you _ now.”

Marinette’s eyes widened, and she hoped to God the blush on her cheeks was because of all the liquor. “I…um…. _ oh…. _ ”

“Don’t flatter yourself, darling,” Chloe assured. “Told him that was the stupidest thing he could’ve ever suggested, but forget it. He’s trying to prevent me from  _ embarrassing  _ him again. So turns out I don’t have to worry about just reporters. I have to worry about his damn little interns and publicists skulking about and trying to catch me in something.”

“Wait,” Marinette finally understood. “So you think he’s going to start getting people to talk to me and catch you in the act.”

Chloe slapped the table. “Bingo.”

“But he always seemed so supportive of everything you did. Like he’d go to the ends of the Earth to defend you, why would he try so hard to fight you on this?”

She shrugged. “He hasn’t stopped being supportive. But….I think he trivializes my being with women. He doesn’t take it seriously, and assumes I’m just doing it to amuse myself. He’ll gladly wave a rainbow flag from his office window, but the moment his own daughter tries to come to him about that sort of thing, all of a sudden he won’t hear of it. He’s narrow minded.”

“That’s not narrow minded, that’s bigoted,” Marinette said. “He’s treating your relationships like they’re stupid little games you’re too old to play. And he’s keeping tabs on you like you’re a criminal. Your father is supposed to support you no matter what. That’s what parents are  _ supposed _ to do.”

“Well, not everyone’s parents are understanding working class bakers who are perfect, sweet, and accepting of the whole goddamn world _ ,” _ Chloe said brusquely. “My father is a politician. He has his beliefs to uphold and also has to appeal to all the conservative voters that are already ambivalent about him. Which means having a daughter that he thinks is gallivanting around and breaking up good engagements and shacking up with random women for the sake of  _ amusement _ ...well, that just gets in the way of making a good impression. It’s ridiculous and idiotic and absolutely infuriating, but that’s  _ my _ reality.”

Marinette braced her arms on the table. “You are the most stubborn, bullheaded person I know. There’s no way you’re taking this sitting down.”

“Obviously not,” Chloe assured. “But I have to be careful how I do this. Otherwise it’s going to explode in my face. So if I can remove any suspicion on his end, it’ll at least give me room to think. So, I need you to promise me,” she asked again. “Just….keep this off my back.”

Marinette sighed as if the answer were obvious. “You know I will, you idiot.”

Chloe glared weakly at her, but her shoulders dropped in relief. “Thank you.”

“Just don’t curl up in catatonic shock over this. You’re an expert at fighting people on literally everything you don’t agree with. It doesn’t matter that he’s your father. If I’m going to do this for you, then you need to get mean.”

“You doubt me?” Chloe smirked. 

“Not at all,” Marinette snickered back. “Just putting my terms on the table.”

Chloe pursed her lips and lazily pointed a manicured finger right at Marinette’s nose. “Speaking of. Can I ask you one more thing?”

“Never stopped you before.”

She was leaning her elbows on the table and leaning in closer, and Marinette didn’t even notice her body mirroring the action until their elbows were only inches apart on the table, and their legs were already touching and tangled under the table. She did her best to ignore all the skin to skin contact and chalked it up to too many drinks, but it suddenly made her more grounded in the conversation, hanging on intently to everything Chloe was saying. “Why are you agreeing to this so easily? You have no incentive to help.”

The answer came quickly, either because her fuzzy brain was making her more honest or because the answer really was that obvious. “Because I want to help you,” she said simply. “I like helping people. I enjoy doing it.”

“We’ve already established why it’s strange to help me.”

Marinette shrugged and dropped one of her hands on the table. She watched in slow motion when Chloe’s dropped as well and their hands were laying right next to each other, inches apart, which was such a strange thing to fixate on but it wasn’t as if her mind cared. “Maybe….I sympathized.”

She watched Chloe’s fingers drum rhythmically on the table. “Sympathized how?”

“I guess…” Marinette thought quietly. “I guess that, from the very beginning, it never looked like a game. It always looked like you were trying to grab something precious and keep it for yourself.”

Chloe hummed and Marinette found that she quite liked the sound. “And you sympathize with that?”

“I don’t know anyone who can’t,” Marinette told her. “When I was younger, my whole world revolved around my friends, my work, my parents, and Adrien. I don’t have any of that like I used to. My friends are barely around, my work exhausts me, my parents are on the other end of the city and I can only really talk to them once every other week, and Adrien is dead and ancient history. I’m  _ constantly _ pining for something consistent, because so is everyone else. Something that you don’t have to worry if it’s going to leave, or take a break, or be gone for days and not come back. It’s there, and it grounds you, and it’s the center of your whole world. People spend  _ years _ trying to find that.  _ I’m _ still trying to find that. And….it feels like you are too.”

Chloe’s head dipped, and Marinette could touch her forehead to hers if only she found the courage to lean forward just a couple of inches. The compulsion was as inexplicable as it was enticing, but Marinette merely let Chloe speak. “And what do you think that something is?”

“When I find it, I’ll tell you.”

Applause from the stage again broke through the silence that had hung after Marinette’s last words and it prompted Chloe to lift her head, and for Marinette to slowly follow. And God, she’d had too much to drink. Far too much. Because Chloe’s face was right there, and despite all the deprecating things she liked to say about Chloe, it would be so easy to do something like reach a hand up and trace along the curve her cheek, or reach back further and curl a lock of hair around her finger, or heaven forbid do something even worse like lean in and hope Chloe followed. She couldn’t deny thinking about it because everyone thought guilty things in the back of their minds where no one could judge and musings could never turn into actions. But now it felt so accessible and she knew it would only take one more push, one small little thing, and she’d be stretching over the table to do something incredibly, irrevocably stupid. 

She tried to rationalize it. It was because Marinette felt for her. It was because of the alcohol. Because of the dim lighting and the sleepy jazz lulling her into reckless sort of bravery that could only serve to help her make irrational decisions. It was the fact that she was still wearing  _ her dress _ and looking stunning in it. And all of these attempts at stepping away from how her instincts wanted to act coalesced into reasons to indulge. It wouldn’t take any effort. Barely two inches forward. She could do it so quickly and play it off like a joke or a prank. Just three seconds….

Chloe licked her lips and swallowed, staring somewhere on Marinette’s face that was lower than her nose. But after a few pregnant moments, she blinked rapidly and sat up straighter in her chair, breaking the distance and immediately making Marinette do the same. “You wanna finish off with a bottle of red?” Chloe asked, clearing her throat. “We can split it.”

Marinette sniggered and tried to look as unaffected as she could. “Is that wise?”

“A couple cups of wine won’t make much of a difference.”

It was such a shit idea, such a terrible idea, they needed to stop, Chloe needed to go back to her driver, and Marinette needed to get home. But she didn’t want to leave and she didn’t want to send Chloe home. Marinette wanted to have one last drink with her. Just one more as a sign of good faith that, yes, she would help. Yes, she was on Chloe’s side. Yes, she wanted her to find what she needed and get people to take it seriously because she knew how that felt, how confusing that could seem. Marinette had come this far, there was no sense in trying to backtrack now. 

She breathed out through her nose, leaned back in her chair, and created more space between them to help her breathe. “Just one bottle.”

* * *

It was close to one in the morning when they finally grabbed their coats and left the bar. The moment they walked out onto the street, Chloe saw her driver parked across the street and immediately groaned and turned back around. Marinette chuckled, grabbed her shoulders before she walked back inside the bar, and tried to turn her body to walk her back to her driver so that she’d at least have a ride back home. But Chloe was huffing childishly and actually trying to physically push her way past Marinette. “Daddy’s going to be  _ home! _ I don’t want to see his damn face, it’ll just piss me off.”

Marinette poked the top of her head. “You’re extremely tipsy, you need to get into bed and rest. Besides, it’s late. I doubt he’ll even see you.”

“Ugh, don’t care,” she kept insisting. “I don’t want to be in the same apartment as him, and I don’t want to be anywhere near him.”

Marinette thought about putting her foot down and marching her straight towards the car despite whatever protests she had, but she also knew that had she been in this position, she also wouldn’t want to go home either. Just the slight possibility of Chloe running into her father and inspiring an argument was enough to put her off, and Marinette got that. But Marinette wasn’t quite sure where Chloe could go. Adrien was probably dead asleep, and it seemed rude to wake him up and deal with a drunken Chloe. She turned her head, stared down the sidewalk, and let out a huge sigh as she wondered whether or not she would come to regret this. “My apartment is only a few blocks away from here. You could….I guess crash in my place.”

Chloe raised a brow. “Wait, seriously? You live this close?”

“I wanted a place close to the boutique,” she shrugged. “It’s only like a ten minute walk if you’re really serious about not going home.”

“Forgive me if I’m reeling a little bit at the thought of you actually opening up your home to me,” Chloe smiled slyly. “I thought we were going to work our way up to Facebook friends first.”

“Look, either take the invitation or leave it, you brat,” Marinette frowned. “Otherwise, I’ll drop you off at a hostel and leave you there to suffer.”

She gave Marinette a  bras d'honneur, but quickly walked across the street and slipped her driver some money to go and take the rest of the night off and leave Chloe to her devices. Marinette was suddenly worried about her father catching wind of Chloe spending the night at another woman’s house — namely the woman who owned the boutique that her father was apparently going to begin spying on — but Chloe assured her that her driver wasn’t the type to squeal to her father about anything. He knew he’d lose his job over something like that. She tightened the sash around her coat, silenced her phone, and told Marinette to lead the way. 

Truth be told, Marinette wasn’t too in love with her apartment. Oh, it was gorgeous and her landlord gave her a good deal on her rent, but it always felt far too dark and empty for her tastes, something she didn’t think about when she made the decision to move in by herself. She thought buying lightly colored furniture and getting plants and candles to line her window sills and tables would help make the place seem lighter and more homey, but it didn’t seem to quite do the job. There was still too much physical space that she couldn’t fill and no matter how much time Marinette spent there, and it was always a permanent struggle to figure out how to solve the dilemma. Alya liked to joke that Marinette needed a boyfriend or a girlfriend to help fill up the space, but Marinette wondered if it was as easy as all that. 

Chloe toed off her feels once they crossed the threshold and immediately turned her nose up at the apartment as she looked around. “Huh. This is nicer than I thought it would be.”

Marinette rolled her eyes and hung up her coat. “Careful. Your spoiled entitlement is showing.”

“What? It was a compliment. It’s neat and the furnishings aren’t  _ completely _ vomit worthy.” She threw her coat over one of Marinette’s chairs and laid herself out on her couch, her feet dangling off of one of the arms. “So where am I supposed to be sleeping?”

Marinette moved into the kitchen and pulled a couple of water bottles out of the fridge. “Well, since you’re so high maintenance, I guess you can take my bed and I’ll take the couch. I’m pretty sure I have a spare nightshirt that you can sleep in.”

“Oooh. A Coccinelle original?”

“No. A thriftstore original. Cotton blend. You’re gonna shut up and wear it.”

Chloe grumbled something obscene under her breath, but Marinette paid her no mind. She pulled out a pack of strawberries that she had bought this morning, cut off the tops, and rinsed them off in a bowl as a bit of a late night snack so that she wouldn’t wake up feeling too sick. She shut the lights off to the kitchen and decided to only leave the one lamp in the corner of the living room on to avoid all the harsh light that would certainly giver her a headache. Chloe was on her phone and watching videos on Instagram while Marinette leaned over the couch, took a lighter, and lit all the candles on the line of windows right behind her to try offer more light. They were the only thing that prevented this place from looking too gloomy at night. 

Marinette tapped Chloe’s ankles and made her move over so that Marinette could sit on the other end of the couch and lay her legs out right next to Chloe’s. She tapped her toes against Chloe’s hip and threw her a water bottle. “Here. You should sober up a bit before you go to bed.”

“Thanks.” Chloe reached her hand out and gestured towards the bowl of strawberries that Marinette eventually just left settled on the coffee table for them both to grab from. She dug around the old sketches that she’d left on the table, found the remote to the television, and switched it to a random romantic comedy with the volume clicked low so that she could fill the apartment with some white noise. She popped some fruit in her mouth, lifted up the cool bottle to her forehead, and closed her eyes, hoping that her stomach and her head would be saved in the morning. 

Surprisingly enough, Chloe was quiet long enough that Marinette almost dozed off like that against the couch, but she was woken up by the feeling of Chloe’s toes shoving into the side of her leg. “Don’t fall asleep on me now. Aren’t hosts supposed to entertain their guests?”

Marinette grumbled in annoyance. “What kind of entertainment were you thinking?”

Chloe twisted her mouth and looked around the living room. “Why is your apartment so huge?” she asked. “Seriously, this seems like something an engaged couple would get.”

“What does that mean?”

Chloe shrugged. “It’s just a lot of space that you don’t really fill up very well.”

Marinette pouted her lips. “I wasn’t really thinking of that at the time. I had just gotten the boutique, and the roommates I had in my other apartment were nightmares. So I wanted a place that was close to work and where I could live alone. This was the cheapest one. Nice hardwood floors. Decent view. Kitchen was in good shape. That’s all I really needed.” She sighed and looked around the spacious living room. “Didn’t realize how empty the place would look. I thought about buying more furniture or something.”

“That’s gonna make it worse,” Chloe promised. “You need another person living here. Like another person’s stuff. Makes no sense to get more shit to fill an apartment if you’re not even going to use it.”

Marinette snorted. “I should just get a dog or something.”

Chloe made a disgusted sound. “Ugh, no. You want a roommate, not an extra chore. Get some hot graduate student who needs a cheap place to live or something. Company and a nice view. What’s better than that?”

“You’re shameless.”

“I’m offering solutions, where you clearly have none. I was bred in politics. I’m always full of ideas.” 

Marinette smiled in exasperation. “If it so pleases you, feel free to submit a list to me by tomorrow morning. God knows I’m tired of coming up with solutions at this point.”

Chloe was absently watching the movie flickering on the television while she started rattling off random suggestions like completely changing the decor, renovating the place, and outright selling it, all of which Marinette wasn’t paying too much mind to. When it wasn’t directly concerning her personal life, Chloe really loved to hear herself talk, and this time Marinette wasn’t putting in any effort to stop her. In fact, it was sort of a nice background noise to have in addition to the television. It wasn’t often that she had people to visit and it was interesting to hear another person’s voice sound through her apartment. It was a little thing, but it made the place seem less lonely. 

Actually, she quite liked the image of Chloe sitting against her couch for some reason. Maybe it was because all the warm candlelights were making Chloe’s hair and dress glow in a way that it never really did for Marinette as far as she knew. It made her look a lot softer, made her snarking and smirking look less harsh and more endearing. The beads on her dress were refracting light and shimmering in the dark living room, and Marinette was rather shocked at how stunning Chloe looked being bathed in all that light. She wanted to take some pride and chalk it up to a well made dress, but she knew it was way more than that. Chloe was such a loud, electrifying, audacious person, and it was pleasantly surprising to see her settle back into a sort of charming beauty that was so subtle and calming. 

Marinette let her bare leg shift against Chloe’s, and the skin to skin contact that seemed so nice at the bar suddenly seemed lacking in comparison to this. She was so warm, giving off so much heat, and her skin was so soft that Marinette wanted to hook a leg around Chloe’s and pull her closer to her side of the couch. And it was such a stupid thought because Chloe would never let her do that, not in a million years, but Marinette didn’t care. Sometimes when your bed is empty for a long time, your heart reaches out for the first beautiful thing it sees and fixates terribly on it. God, and they didn’t like each other, and it wouldn’t ever be anything serious between them, but Chloe certainly wasn’t a stranger to harmless fun. Things as intense as this could surely be simplified to just that, couldn’t they?

“You’re staring.”

Marinette let her eyes flutter up to look at Chloe, but all that did was bring her attention to how dark her blue eyes had suddenly looked. “No I’m not.”

Chloe bit the corner of her lip and shifted her leg up, making Marinette shiver. “Yes you are.”

Yes she was, and Chloe was staring back, tracing down the line of the deep cut of her dress and watching Marinette lick her lips and tangle her fingers in the fabric. There was something so damn exhilarating and confusing about that, so delightful and perplexing, that Marinette asked without thinking. “Do you hate me?”

Chloe furrowed her brows and snorted. “No,” she assured. “You’re exasperating and infuriating, but I don’t hate you.”

“Why did you hate me in school?”

“Marinette, where is this coming — ?”

“Just please,” Marinette interrupted quickly. “I wanna know. I’ve always wanted to know what I did to you.”

Chloe stared at Marinette for a long time, and then did something strange. She took the leg that was pressed against Marinette’s and swung it over so that her leg was slipped in between Marinette’s legs, and Marinette’s leg was slipped in between hers. She leaned forward so that her elbows were resting on her knees and it took her at least a minute to finish collecting her thoughts to answer. “I was a bitch to you,” she admitted. “I was a bitch to everyone. But when you’re fifteen...being known by everyone as being a bitch is better than floating in obscurity.”

“What do you mean?”

“People don’t just saddle up to the mayor’s daughter and want to be friends. Kids aren’t seeped in politics, they don’t like you because you’re powerful and rich. They like you because you’re nice and have cool hair or pretty pens. If anything, being powerful and rich just makes people scared of you.”

“Scared of you?” Marinette frowned. 

“I guess. And it wasn’t fair because I was trying. I was terrible at making friends, but I tried. But it didn’t work, so I got angry instead. Lashed out and made their lives Hell so they’d see me. And in my head I’m thinking ‘here’s this nobody baker’s daughter from next door making all these friends, and I’m the daughter of the mayor and I can’t make one.’ You got my blood boiling more than anyone else.”

Marinette leaned forward and rested her cheek against her forearm. “You were jealous of me…”

Chloe shrugged. “I don’t know what to call it. Look, you have every right to hate me even if I don’t hate you. But I’ve got a story too. I’ve got reasons. And funnily enough, I feel like you’re the one person who gets them.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because all these years later, you’re the one copping me a break. It’s hilarious.”

Chloe’s hair was slipping in front of her eyes, and Marinette was brave enough to reach over and tuck it behind her ear. “I have and still think that you’re just lonely. And people do really dumb things when they’re lonely. Trust me, I know.”

“You’re excusing me.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t excuse when we were teenagers. But that was years ago, and it doesn’t even really matter anymore, does it?”

Chloe smiled softly. “No. I guess it doesn’t.”

And there it was, way too obvious for her to ignore. Marinette desperately wanted to kiss her. Right here, in her apartment, with the candles burning, with the cityscape right behind them, with the wind howling against the building, with a cheesy movie playing in the background, with their legs tangled together on the couch...Marinette wanted to pull Chloe on top of her and melt into the feeling of her lips sliding sweetly and slowly over her own. 

Chloe’s lips were growing pink, and her eyes were mapping every little crevice on Marinette’s face. “Say I wanted to do something really stupid. Would you let me?”

“Depends on how stupid we’re talking.”

“Abysmally stupid. But incredibly satisfying.”

They had moved their heads closer to each other at some point, and Marinette only realized that when her forehead bumped against Chloe’s. “You have my attention.”

Chloe’s hand reached up and wrapped around Marinette’s wrist. “Good. Because I don’t intend to lose it.”

And just like that, there it was, right in front of her. The last little push, shove, and drop that Marinette needed. 

Marinette pulled on Chloe’s other wrist and buried her hand in her hair at the same moment that Chloe rolled up on her knees and cupped both of Marinette’s cheeks in her hands. Marinette realized just how damn  _ long _ it had been since she’d kissed someone because the moment their lips locked, she sighed into Chloe’s mouth and couldn’t get an arm around her waist quick enough. For some reason, in the guilty and very well kept secret thoughts she had on the possibility of the two of them hooking up, she pictured a lot more knocking teeth, a lot more grabbing, scratching, sloppiness, over-excitement, and desperation. Something to mirror that same snark and competitiveness they always held for each other. But Chloe was such a slow, sweet kisser — gently prying Marinette’s mouth open, stopping for brief moments to breathe in between their lips before reconnecting, rubbing little circles on the apples of Marinette’s cheeks, and settling comfortably in Marinette’s lap. It left Marinette’s body feeling like it was smoldering, it left her toes curling, it left the corners of her mouth turning up right before she gently slipped her tongue against Chloe’s. 

Chloe pushed her back against the couch and started slipping the straps of Marinette’s dress off her shoulders. Marinette fumbled around Chloe’s back and yanked down the zipper, taking a secret amount of thrill in the fact that she was helping her get out of the same dress she helped her into not a few hours ago. They both kicked their dresses to the floor and Chloe took a moment to brace her hands on either side of Marinette’s head, prop herself up, and soak up the sight of Marinette with her hair mussed, her chest heaving, laying underneath her in nothing but her bra and underwear. It looked like it flipped a switch in her head because suddenly Chloe was sliding up her body, kissing across the curve of her breasts, licking paths up her neck, and sucking on the skin she found there which had Marinette groaning into the ceiling and thrusting her hips up. 

Marinette grappled on the side of the couch and managed to yank on the latch that opened up the recliner. It snapped out with a loud bang and made the two of them sink down further into the cushions, causing them both to yelp and laugh into each other’s necks. But Marinette used the extra space to drop her knees open, grab the backs of Chloe’s thighs, and shove her closer. She smiled when Chloe’s mouth dropped open at the feel of their hips grinding together. 

Her fingers were digging into the flesh of Marinette’s thighs, and Chloe was back at her neck again, more than likely leaving bruises and marks that Marinette would worry about in the morning. Chloe’s hips were rolling deliciously against hers, and she could feel the wetness of her underwear as they slid against her own. 

The springs of the couch were squeaking as their rutting got quicker and sloppier. Marinette pulled Chloe back and kissed her again, whining against her mouth and and accidentally biting down on Chloe’s bottom lip when a particularly well angled thrust lined up right on her clit and made her eyes flutter closed. Chloe paused, smirked beautifully, and turned Marinette’s chin up until she was looking straight at her. “Make that noise again.”

She felt Chloe’s finger slide against her underwear and through the center of her lips until she circled around her clit again and made Marinette’s thighs tremble as she moaned out a curse. Acting like she’d suddenly discovered something precious, she quickly undid the clasp on the front of Marinette’s bra, kissed, licked, and nipped at the newly exposed skin, and carefully slid a hand into Marinette’s underwear. 

Her hand was cold and it made Marinette wince, but she was so warm and wet that Chloe’s fingers warmed up quickly as they moved up, circled around, and moved back down again. She continued that maddening teasing until she stopped right at the top of her lips and worked two of her fingers slowly but firmly, making Marinette shoot a hand down and grip Chloe’s shoulder with a ferocity she hadn’t expected from herself. Marinette turned her face into the cushion under her head and sobbed into the fabric, canting her hips up to meet every single mind blowing stroke against the bundle of nerves. 

Sweat was making her hair stick to her forehead and neck, her lips felt red and bruised from all of the biting, her neck was sore from the marks Chloe left there, and Marinette didn’t care one bit. Every scrap of her attention was focused on Chloe’s hand, Chloe lips, Chloe’s sighs and moans that were echoing right after her own, and the warm, beautiful, arousal that was slowly building up and making Marinette want to just push Chloe on her back, rip her underwear off, and  _ thrust. _

But there was something so bewitching about looking down at Chloe and watching her stare back. The sight of her so pleased and so determined to make Marinette a shivering, shaking mess was keeping Marinette grounded and curious, oh so curious to see what she’d do next, what she’d make Marinette feel next. And just when that thought finished, Marinette smiled through her moan as Chloe easily slipped two fingers inside of her. 

They were already moving and curling up against the top of her walls, and Marinette’s nails were digging into Chloe’s skin at the feeling of it. Everything spilling out of her mouth was a mixture of broken moans, choked curses, and quiet, quiet whispers of Chloe’s name that left Chloe laughing into Marinette’s stomach whenever she heard them. Marinette quickly reached her other hand down and started rubbing against her hood, feeling herself getting dangerously close to screaming loud enough for her neighbors to hear. 

Chloe moved back up to place a kiss against Marinette’s open mouth, pressing their sweat slicked foreheads together, and keeping her thrusts focused on one spot that was making Marinette’s hips snap up discordantly. Marinette could feel herself getting louder and sounding more desperate, but Chloe kissed along the shell of her ear and kept shushing her, kept muttering her name, kept slicking Marinette’s hair back so she could still watch her face. 

Marinette could feel her wrist aching, and Chloe had already switched hands twice, but eventually Marinette was bowing off the couch and feeling her orgasm wash over her strong enough to make her reach a hand up to cover her mouth and muffle the moans and screams. But Chloe was still thrusting inside of her and pushing Marinette’s hand out of the way so that she could hear every beautiful sound that was being pushed out of her. Her fingers didn't stop until Marinette's hips had finally stilled and she was collapsed bonelessly against the couch, trying to catch her breath and feeling the occasional contractions of her walls pulse through her. 

Chloe kissed across the line of her jaw and pressed three quick taps against Marinette’s lips before she slipped her fingers into her mouth and licked them clean. She smiled when she noticed Marinette staring and shrugged. “I didn’t want to ruin your couch.”

“Then come and ruin my bed.” Marinette leaned up to kiss her again, breaking only to blow out the candles and shut the television off. She pulled on her elbows until they were both stumbling off of the couch, bumping against the walls of the hallway, and bursting into Marinette’s room at the other end of the apartment. She shoved Chloe back against her pillows and awkwardly reached to her left to switch on a lamp without disconnecting their lips. The afterglow of her orgasm was making her impatient, and she didn’t waste any time tugging Chloe’s underwear past her hips, slipping them down her legs, and discarding them somewhere on her floor. 

She slid down and hiked up one of Chloe’s legs, kissing past the curve of her knee and biting gently into the skin on her inner thigh. Her nails were lightly scraping against the skin of her lower stomach and she smiled into her skin when Chloe shivered violently and gripped the comforter underneath her. Marinette hooked her arms underneath her thighs, settled in between Chloe’s legs, and dragged her tongue through her sex. 

Chloe immediately gasped out, threaded a hand into Marinette’s hair, and rubbed a thumb against her temple as Marinette slid her tongue through her folds and circled around her clit. There was something so intoxicating about being able to dissolve Chloe Bourgeois into such a restless, desperate, impatient mess that Marinette had to hold her hips down against the mattress so that she could properly taste her. And  _ God _ , she was delicious. She realized with a pleasant shock that she could eat her out like this for hours, or be more than happy to sit Chloe on her desk in her office, spread her legs open, and make her come again and again until Chloe could barely have the energy to cut in with any of her smart sarcasm. It was a dangerous, terribly self-indulgent thought, but it kept her mouth moving enthusiastically, kept her emboldened enough to want to hear Chloe scream her name out. 

She reached her arms up, slid her hands underneath the thin fabric of Chloe’s bra, and massaged her breasts as she pushed her tongue into her entrance and let her nose brush against her clit. The room was filling with all of the lewd, wet noises Marinette was making as she devoured her, and Chloe sounded like she was quickly losing her grip on whatever control and sanity she had when she had Marinette pinned to the couch. And Marinette was  _ drunk _ off of it, never wanted it to end. Everytime she felt Chloe’s body tense up, she eased back and kissed up her stomach, chuckling when Chloe’s fists would band against the mattress in frustration. She’d leave her dangling for a few seconds before she dived back down, her lips, tongue, and teeth working through the soreness of her jaw. 

It was right when Chloe was moaning, shouting and sighing out pleads, begs for more, and frustrated curses that Marinette realized just how right Chloe was. This was stupid. Truly idiotic. Not because of morals or decorum or even regret. But because Marinette was getting a rather intensive crash course lesson for why she’d been putting so much effort into trying to help Chloe. Maybe it had started with sympathy and with a pure desire to help, but it had slowly turned into this. A pure and simple desire to give Chloe what she needed because Marinette took genuine pleasure and joy from that. Call it like or love or lust, it didn’t matter. Because this was still Chloe — a woman who’d always come to her for a decent distraction. 

A distraction. That’s all this was. 

But screw it, she thought. Right when Chloe’s hips snapped up violently and screamed out Marinette’s name when she finally came after such an agonizingly long period of teasing and edging, Marinette was determined to be the distraction that Chloe would keep coming back to. Because she needed Marinette. She trusted Marinette. She was literally spread out, satiated, and breathless  _ because _ of Marinette. 

She kissed up Chloe’s body and laughed when Chloe wrapped an arm around her neck and crashed their lips together into that rough, desperate kiss that Marinette had been waiting all night for. Chloe slid her leg along the side of Marinette’s hips, stared up at her in exhaustion, and smirked. 

“Again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me at breeeliss.tumblr.com


	4. Part 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a reminder: assume all future chapters are going to have some form of explicit content. you've been warned :P

Marinette’s mother used to always tell her that being selfish wasn’t about living the way you wanted, but about demanding others to live the way you wanted.

That’s why it was important to always consider others, to understand that everyone lives parallel to everyone else. Connected, but separate.

Although, motherly advice only ever sounded plausible when Marinette was sitting on her mother’s lap. Something about being tucked under her chin — counting her heartbeats, humming to the sound of her chest rumbling as she spoke so softly, so sweetly — made Marinette believe that it really was so easy to be kind and selfless and patient. So easy to believe that heroes began in the hearts of little girls who learned how to put good into the world and not demand any of it back.

But being an adult was harder, and Marinette realized very quickly that surviving necessitated the sacrifice of a lot of people’s feelings in order to take care of your own. After all, everyone was comprised of exactly the same things: generosity and selfishness, goodness and greed. It wasn’t a matter of purging yourself of your uglier qualities. It was a matter of starving those uglier qualities and feeding the good ones.

In terms of the small, everyday good, Marinette felt like she did a rather decent job staying kind. She didn’t take, she borrowed and gave back. If plans changed, she changed hers with them. If someone needed her time or help, she tried to always give at least some. She also knew what it was like to accidentally hurt people because you were so concerned with getting what you wanted, to be careless with another’s feelings because you cared more about your own. But the trick was to take those compulsions and smother them — shrink them until they were too small to indulge in.

Of course, Chloe never agreed with any of that. In fact, it left Chloe laughing incredulously and staring at Marinette as if she was surprised she’d made it as far in life as she had.  

“That’s a fucking stupid tenet to live by,” Chloe told her. “You can’t just starve parts of yourself and hope that they don’t inconvenience other people. You either keep everything alive, or you don’t bother. Show people what you’re willing to do to keep yourself happy. You’re more important than anyone else on the planet anyway.”

* * *

 The Sunday alarm on Marinette’s cell phone went off at ten in the morning.

The ringer screeched and echoed through the spacious apartment and jolted her awake, leaving her to sigh petulantly into her pillow for being woken up this early on her day off. She dragged a hand over his face and winced as the ringtone worsened the already horrid migraine that was drilling into her temple. Marinette leaned over the edge of the bed to peek out her bedroom door and was just able to see the phone vibrating amongst a pile of her clothes next to the coffee table where she threw them last night. It felt so far away, she almost wanted to fall back asleep and leave it alone.

But she felt a hand tighten on her thigh and looked over her shoulder to see Chloe groaning in her sleep and pulling the comforter over her head. “Go shut that shit off.”

Marinette furrowed her brows and gently tucked Chloe’s hand under her chin. “Sorry. I’ll get it in a sec.”

Chloe grumbled something about it being too late, but she stayed under the covers while Marinette untangled her legs from Chloe’s and padded across the room for a bathrobe. She winced against the soreness radiating through her thighs as she threw it on, no doubt the result of spending so much time on her knees with her face buried in the pillows last night. Her only solace was that she was positive that Chloe was in a similar amount of pain. Maybe that’s why she decided to stay the night instead of heading home earlier in the morning. Marinette wasn’t sure what time they wound up falling asleep, and only remembered staring at the clock at four in the morning while Chloe was leaving hickeys on her thighs and fingering her towards a fourth orgasm. The urge to catch up on all the hours of lost sleep was incredibly tempting.

Although, it was strange, Marinette noted with a chuckle. She sort of remembered Chloe running her through a detailed list of tenets she followed when it came to one night stands. First on the list was to avoid any and all awkward encounters the morning after by waking up at sunrise and catching a car back home before the other person woke up. Something about not wanting to go through the headache of having to apply context to what was just and would always remain sex. She wondered what was different this time around.

She quickly made her way to the living room to shut off her alarm and checked the memo tagged onto it. Lunch with Alya in four hours. Texts from her and Adrien. A voicemail from her mother. And all of her work reminders for tomorrow.

Deciding it was way too late to bother going back to bed at this point, she took her time checking under the coffee table, behind the couch, and next to television before finding Chloe’s cell phone falling out of her purse still thrown by the front door. Marinette looked back at the bedroom and found Chloe sitting up in bed, unbothered that she was stretching naked in front of the window with the curtains open. She swept her hair aside and ran her fingers along the scratches that Marinette had accidentally left on her shoulders.

Marinette threw Chloe’s phone on the bed next to her and cleared her sore throat. “I’m uh. Gonna use the bathroom real quick. Do you mind?”

Chloe smirked and looked over her shoulder, distracting Marinette with her sun-kissed profile. “It’s your house. Do what you want.”

Marinette fiddled with a huge knot on the back of her head and tried to keep her gaze above Chloe’s shoulders. “Figured I’d ask. A high maintenance thing like you probably monopolizes on any bathroom she enters.”

“Oh, screw you,” Chloe smiled, allowing the nerves in Marinette’s chest to gently unravel. She jutted her chin towards the robe Marinette was wearing. “By the way, mind if I borrow one of those and steal some of your tea?”

“Yeah. Just pull one off the hook behind the door, and you’re welcome to anything in the kitchen. Just don’t touch my Brazilian coffee. It was a gift from Adrien and it’s expensive.”

Chloe stuck her tongue out. “No promises. Now hurry up.”

Marinette walked down the hall, slipped into the bathroom, and leaned her back against the door with a huge sigh. She turned the tap to the cold water as far as it would go, splashed her face, and stared at her reflection in the mirror above the sink, letting the water drip down her chin.

She looked like absolute shit. Puffy under her eyes, swollen lips, makeup from last night smudged around her eyes, and bruises dotted all the way down her neck and across her collarbone. Marinette reached up, jabbed her thumb into a particularly dark one, and laughed when she winced at the pain. Normally, she hated when anyone marked her up like this, but it was so beautiful to watch Chloe move across her body so desperately like she was trying to drink up every inch of her skin like there was a possibility she wouldn’t see it in the morning, or ever again. Every time Marinette arched her back or gripped at Chloe’s thighs, it was like a fire was lit underneath her that made her move quicker, harder, and stronger. Chloe — who was so meticulous when it came to constructing the polished versions of herself that others around her perceived — completely fell apart in a way that Marinette absolutely _loved_. She liked having the proof tattooed across her skin if only to help convince herself that this actually happened and the world didn’t explode the morning after.

When Marinette slept with people and woke up the next morning, she always had a pretty good idea whether or not she wanted to see that person again. She’d either be relieved to wake up to an empty bed and enjoy having breakfast alone, or she’d have to go through the annoying process of making up some work related emergency, kicking people out of her bed, and kindly accepting phone numbers only to delete and block them five minutes later. She and Chloe had spent hours swapping stories like that, and they both understood the appeal of getting your kicks and scratching an itch until something worthwhile came along.

Except this didn’t feel like the satisfying aftermath of getting one quick fix to effectively tide her over. She thought about Chloe still sitting naked in her bed and she wanted more. _Much_ more. She didn’t think she was going to be able to see Chloe anymore and not want to bring her back to her apartment and completely lose herself in her for an entire evening. The taste of her still felt fresh on Marinette’s tongue and the ghost of Chloe’s teeth gently grazing her skin was enough to make her close her eyes and feel small whispers of arousal wash through her again. A really indulgent part of her wanted to walk back outside, forget breakfast, and pull Chloe back into bed with her, knowing it would feel just as good the second time around.

But Marinette wasn’t the one toeing a delicate line between placating her father and indulging in the exact kind of behavior that would have him denouncing her morals. In that situation, she could imagine that there were certain risks not worth taking again, and Marinette had no right to decide whether or not she was even one of them.

Marinette washed the old makeup off her face, brushed her teeth, and spent ten minutes yanking all of the tangles out of her hair. She was in the middle of braiding her hair over her shoulder when Chloe knocked on the door and poked her head in. “Did you die in here?” she joked. “Come on, I need the sink.”

“Tell me about it,” Marinette smirked through the hair tie caught in her teeth. “You’ve got eyeliner all the way on your cheeks.”

“And whose fault is that? Hurry up! I have to pee.”

“Just hold it!”

“Get out, you bathroom hog.”

Marinette laughed as Chloe shoved her out and shut the door in her face. “Do you like eggs?” she called through the door. “Breakfast is on me.”

“Eggs are cool!” Chloe said back. “There’s tea on the counter for you.”

Marinette bit her lip against her smile and went to the kitchen to heat up pans for omelets. She picked up one of the steaming mugs that were left next to the stove and tried to look past all the sugar Chloe put in that Marinette usually didn’t like adding. She piled all of their clothes on the couch, drew the curtains, turned on the radio, and started pulling ingredients from the fridge.

By the time Chloe came out the bathroom, fresh faced, clean, and wearing one of Marinette’s scarlet robes, Marinette already had two plates of eggs out, a plate of croissants her mother had sent her yesterday morning, and some leftover honeydew that she found in the back of her fridge.

“You know, I can’t remember the last time I had someone cook me a meal,” Chloe mused as Marinette pushed her mug of tea across the table towards her. “Barring takeout, restaurants, and room service of course. This is kind of cute.”

Marinette winced. “Would it upset you if I told you that I’m just using this as an excuse to get rid of my leftovers before they spoil?”

Chloe stabbed her eggs with her fork and spoke with her mouthful. “You know. You’re not very romantic, are you?”

“What do you mean? I pulled out all my good china for you.”

“These are hard plastic plates!”

“Yeah. You’re welcome.”

Chloe frowned and grabbed the plate of fruit. “I’m taking these for myself, you cheapskate.”

“You’re only doing me a favor you know. Want the rest of my milk while you’re at it? It goes bad tomorrow.”

“I’m going to steal your Brazilian coffee at the rate you’re going.”

Marinette felt her shoulders shake with laughter. “How about this? I’ll make you some later. I know you’re miserable when you haven’t had any before noon.”

Chloe smiled and nudged Marinette’s knee with her bare foot. “Are you offering to let me stay?”

Marinette shrugged and looked down at her plate. “I mean, you already spent the night. If you wanted to stick around for a bit, I wouldn’t mind. I know you’re not keen on going home, and it’s not like I have plans for a few hours anyway.”

She tipped her head in thought. “You’d keep me company?”

“Isn’t that what I’ve been doing for the past few weeks?”

“No I know, but….” Chloe trailed off. “Obviously this is a little different. You could’ve kicked me out.”

“You could’ve snuck out,” Marinette countered. “While you’re here, I might as well be a good host.”

Chloe curled her hair around her pinky and gave Marinette a small smile. “That’s oddly sweet of you.”

Marinette’s laugh came out a little too breathless and her hand immediately went up to tug at her braid. “Did you not expect me to be nice to you afterwards?”

“Full disclosure, I wasn’t expecting anything. Last night happened really quickly, and in the moment I kinda didn’t care about whether or not I was going to make things awkward between us. I was, ah….otherwise occupied.”

Marinette snorted into her tea and found it endearing that Chloe was chipping away at her old manicure and tentatively looking up at Marinette as if she were afraid she said something wrong. Beforehand, getting Chloe to be that honest with Marinette was worse than pulling teeth, and it usually almost turned into a sarcastic comment that was easy and safe to volley with. It was like after everything that happened last night, they crossed into a realm of familiarity that allowed Chloe to be candid with her, as if it was silly to put on airs and pretend like they weren’t allowed to be privy to each other’s thoughts and feelings. “Do you care if things are awkward?” Marinette dared to ask, wondering just how honest Chloe was willing to be with her.

Chloe hooked one of her ankles around Marinette’s under the table and seemed to collect all the nerve in her body to look Marinette straight in the eyes when she answered. “Yeah, I do,” she said. “Which is a little strange to admit, but….I feel like now that we’re sorta-kinda okay with each other, I don’t want to go back and fuck that up.”

“‘Sorta-kinda okay with each other’?” Marinette snickered. “You were literally sitting on my face last night.”

Chloe threw a croissant at her, trying to look annoyed but struggling to hold back her grin. “You’re the fucking worst I’m trying to be serious here!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Marinette laughed, holding up both her hands in defense. “I had to!” She rested one of her feet in Chloe’s lap until she faced her again. “But I feel the same. I….I don’t want things to be awkward with us. I’ve gotten used to you being around, it would suck if that just stopped.” Marinette rubbed the back of her neck. “Plus, I, uh. I had fun. Last night, I mean.”

Chloe’s hand circled around Marinette’s ankle and rubbed circles into her skin. “Yeah?”

“That was one hell of a way to end a dry spell,” Marinette admitted. “I’m delightfully impressed.”

Chloe licked her lips and traced her fingers further up Marinette’s leg. “Do you want to have more fun?”

Marinette raised a brow. “Now?”

“Not necessarily now, although if you’re willing, I am too.”

“What about your father?”

Chloe shrugged, let Marinette’s ankle drop, and got up from her chair. “I’m very good at being discreet. He might be obsessed with how much time I spend at your boutique, but it’s not as if he’s monitoring me every second of the day. For all he knows I’m at pilates right now.”

She braced her hands on the back of Marinette’s chair, pushed her away from the table, and kneeled in front of of her. “I don’t want to put anymore heat on you,” Marinette said.

“You’re not putting any heat anywhere,” Chloe replied, kissing Marinette’s knee. “Granted being seen too much in public with you isn’t a good idea at the moment, and visits to your boutique are going to have to be severely downsized. But it’s not like he knows where you live, and he’s not deranged enough to dig that information up for the sake of a hunch.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Marinette said. “I don’t want to be the ammunition your father uses to make you feel horrible about yourself and what you do in your own time.”

Chloe frowned in annoyance. “If it came to that, your precious reputation would be left pretty unscathced, you know.”

“I’m don’t say that because I’m worried about what’s going to happen to me. I just don’t want anything having to do with us twisted into some ugly thing for you to feel ashamed of. You’ve had enough of that already.”

Chloe snorted in amusement, leaned her cheek against Marinette’s thigh, and shook her head. “I still forget that you’re actually this chivalrous and not just being a goody two shoes for the sake of appearances.”

Marinette rolled her eyes. “Of course I’m being serious. I wouldn’t joke about this.”

“And neither would I,” Chloe said. She closed her eyes and started moving her kisses to the inside of her knee while Marinette’s legs eagerly opened for her. “Let’s make it simple. Yes or no. Do you want me?”

Marinette sighed and tipped her head back the moment Chloe undid the front of her robe and moved her mouth further up her thighs. “Yes,” she hissed out. She wanted her pliant, begging, and desperate for her. There was nothing more satisfying to her in that moment than knowing that Chloe was already eager to come back for more of her.

“Then don’t worry so much,” Chloe mouthed against her skin.

“Excuse me for being practical,” Marinette mumbled.

“That’s all you’ve _been_ doing since I walked into your boutique,” Chloe chuckled. “I’m tired of thinking about all that shit and I really want to have some fun. So shut the fuck up and enjoy yourself, huh?”

Marinette melted into her chair and gasped when she felt Chloe’s tongue gently circle her hood. “C-Chloe — ”

“Mmm, I loved when you ate me out last night,” Chloe breathed out against her wet lips. “If I do a good job and make you cum, do you think you can do it again?”

“ _Aah!_.....be careful what you wish for,” Marinette grinned, gripping the hair on the back of Chloe’s head and tugging gently. “Last time I did it so hard, you were blissed out and crying.”

Chloe closed her lips around Marinette’s clit and moaned at the memory, leaving Marinette writhing around in her chair. “Oh f-fuck….I-I have a….shit, a lunch in a few hours.”

“Don’t worry,” Chloe said in between her long, languid licks through her folds. “I’ll be done with my breakfast by then.”

There was no way to turn off the part of Marinette’s brain that was still wondering what would happen if they misstepped, if her father found out, if somehow these trysts of theirs were going to turn into something they were going to regret a few days or weeks down the line. But Chloe’s modus operandi was always to snatch pleasure where she could find it and worry about the consequences later. And right now pleasure for her was on her knees with her face in between Marinette’s thighs, not caring about the silly what-if’s that Marinette was so used to occupying.

Marinette screwed her eyes shut, yanked on Chloe’s hair, and felt her whole body shake and spasm, idly wondering if this could perhaps be an exercise in learning how to be selfish as well.

* * *

 

“So, am I allowed to comment on the fact that your office looks like it was ransacked, or….?”

Marinette scowled around her chopsticks and glared at Alya across the desk. “Don’t start.”

“I’m just saying,” Alya defended, resting her feet on top of a box of chiffon fabric and picking all of the vegetables of out of her lo mein. “Normally this place is immaculate.”

“All of my fabric orders came in late, I took eight new commissions today, I might have to hire an extra seamstress, I’m behind on my bookkeeping, and they forgot to add curry to my noodle order.” She chewed angrily on a dumpling and puffed out her cheeks in annoyance. “The mess represents my internal state of being.”

“Is this why we’re camped out in your office eating take out instead of going out like civilized human beings?”

“Don’t judge me,” Marinette said, pointing her chopsticks in Alya’s face. “Besides, you love this restaurant.”

“Hey, you know I’m not going to get in the way of you and your comfort food. I came to see you anyway.”

“I love how you managed to pick the one day where I’m stressed out of my mind and looking like a monster.”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot that to you no makeup, a ponytail, and jeans is practically code for fashion trainwreck.”

“Well when you put it like _that_ ….”

“Listen, you could be dressed in a sleeping bag for all I care, and I’d still want to see you. Stop dwelling on things you can’t control and eat your food. I have to tell you about this ridiculous copy editor that they just hired who mansplained commas to me the other day.”

“The one with the desk right next to yours?”

“He’s younger than me, Marinette. He called me _sweetheart_ and pinched my cheek like I was a little kid.”

Marinette gasped dramatically. “ _Scandalous_.”

“Marinette, you’d be so proud of me, because I didn’t kill this man. But listen….”

Ironically enough, after Alya had pitched a fit to her editor about giving her more time off from work so that she could get her personal life back, Marinette’s own workload reached hellish proportions which left her only enough time to sleep, eat, and come into work. It took some serious convincing over the phone to make Marinette close early that Friday afternoon so that she could get some rest, but Alya accomplished it and brought some celebratory take out food from one of their favorite restaurants to Marinette’s office so that they could spend the afternoon together without worrying about customers interrupting them. Admittedly the decor was a little rough with all the shipment boxes and stray fabric thrown about, but Alya took more amusement from it than anything else.

She was glad she agreed to it because Alya’s energy and her outlandish stories from work did wonders in the way of perking up Marinette’s mood. She was close to saving up enough money to get a new lease for a bigger storefront, so Marinette had been committing most of her free time to her boutique, her commissions, and catching up on finance. It was nice to take a break. Of course the one exception to that routine were the weekends and occasional weekday evenings which Chloe almost always monopolized by coming over to Marinette’s apartment to gossip, hog her television, get away from her father, and keep her up most of the night with sex that admittedly did wonders as far as preventing Marinette from completely losing her mind during the week.

Seeing as how Chloe couldn’t spend time at Marinette’s boutique anymore or keep her company during all the work she had to do before and after closing everyday, she made up for the deficit by becoming a recurring fixture in Marinette’s home. It got to the point where Marinette learned to keep coffee brewing for Chloe in the mornings in preparation for the moment when she’d eventually knock on her door and beg for some entertainment.

They’d been keeping up that routine for close to six weeks, and it very much felt like nothing had changed between them with the exception of their new recreational activity being added to their usual methods of killing time. If anything, Marinette didn’t think she’d ever seen Chloe in such a good mood. All the nights that Chloe had been spending in her apartment seemed like proof that she was actively avoiding her father, but that seemed like a good thing for her, especially now that any untoward social media hype about her or her ex-fiance had finally come to a complete standstill.

It was hard not to smile at Chloe sitting on the couch in Marinette’s old clothes with a bowl of cereal in her hands and laughing herself to tears over the morning sitcoms she loved watching so much. It made her presence feel so normal — like there wasn’t a pressure on her shoulders demanding her to make tough decisions Marinette knew she still wasn’t ready to face — and Marinette actively hoped that the small bits of respite that Chloe was able to find with her wouldn’t end too abruptly for her sake. She tended to come by on Friday evenings, so maybe Chloe could help her take her mind off of her ever-growing workload tonight. God knows they could both use it.

Marinette pulled herself out of her thoughts and let herself get absorbed in Alya’s rather dramatic tale about how she publically humiliated and essentially blackmailed her newspaper’s newest hire right up until an insistent knock shook the door of her boutique.

Alya peered over her shoulder with a frown. “Didn’t you put the closed sign up?”

“I thought I did.” She stood up and rounded her desk to make her way to the front of the store. “Give me a second.”

Marinette reached behind the counter of the register to retrieve the keys to the storefront and unlocked the front doors to greet a young man, perhaps only a couple of years younger than herself, standing out in the rain underneath a small umbrella. He cleared his throat nervously and shivered against the wind outside. “Evening, mademoiselle. I was wondering if I could get just a moment of your time?”

“I’m sorry, I’m closed early for the day,” Marinette said, pointing to the ‘closed’ sign hanging on the door. “If you come back tomorrow at around nine in the morning, I’ll have the store manager here to help you with whatever you need.”

“Oh, it isn’t anything related to the boutique unfortunately,” he explained. “It’s actually a personal matter. See I’m looking for someone, but my phone died and it’s raining a little too hard outside for me to go out and look for her. She mentioned something about coming to this boutique before meeting up with me, so I was wondering if you’d seen her? Or perhaps I could just use your phone to make a call?”

Marinette looked back at Alya apologetically, but she waved her hand and shook her head, not seeming too put off at the minor interruption. “Alright, come in and get dry. I can let you use the store phone to make a call, but there’s no guarantee I’ll have seen your friend.”

“She’s pretty recognizable,” the young man laughed as Marinette moved behind the register to look for the handheld. “I mean, I’m sure you’re familiar with the mayor’s daughter, right? Chloe? I was supposed to meet her today.”

Marinette immediately stopped rifling through the drawer she was looking through, paused for a few beats, and slowly turned her head back to the guest. “Chloe _Bourgeois?”_

“Yeah,” he nodded innocently, struggling to close his umbrella. “Has she come by here?”

She pursed her lips, felt her hand tightening nervously around the phone in her hand, and slammed the drawer shut harder than she meant to. “No,” Marinette answered shortly. “She hasn’t been here. I haven’t seen her around either. Sorry.”

“Are you sure?” he asked again. “I’m almost positive I remember her mentioning dropping by this place — ”

“Well she hasn’t,” Marinette smiled pleasantly. “If you still want to use the phone, you’re more than welcome to, but I’m afraid I can’t help you anymore than that.”

The young man laughed incredulously and leaned against the counter. “I don’t think she would’ve lied to me about something like this. Surely you know something.”

“I’ve already told you everything I know.”

“So why don’t I believe you?”

Marinette raised both of her brows and laughed in disbelief. “Monsieur, my statement still stands. I don’t appreciate perfect strangers coming into my business accusing _me_ of lying. I’d like it if you made your phone call and left.”

In a stroke of good timing, Alya came from Marinette’s office and walked towards the counter, staring suspiciously at their new guest. “Is there a problem here?”

The young man lifted his hand. “It’s nothing, mademoiselle. I’m simply looking for a friend.”

“I think she just got through explaining to you that she hasn’t been here,” Alya glared. “Like you said, Bourgeois is pretty recognizable. It would’ve been hard for her to miss her.”

“Look I know she’s been here!” the man repeated. “She was taking pictures of your clothing while she was in here and showed them to me.”

Marinette crossed her arms. “How convenient that your phone is dead so that I can’t confirm them myself.”

The man raised his voice. “Why do I have to confirm anything? Just help me and tell me when she was here!”

Alya planted her hands on her hips and stepped in front of Marinette so that she was standing right in front of the stranger. “First of all, you’re gonna tone it down a notch because I don’t appreciate yelling, and I know my friend here doesn’t either. Second, either you’re going to take your fucking phone call or I’m going to call the police and say you’re trespassing in a place of business after hours and causing a commotion. Pick.”

The man lifted both of his hands and started backing up towards the door. “Alright, alright, listen. There’s no need for that.”

“I should hope not,” Alya said. She rifled through her pocket, swiped around her phone, and lifted it to take a quick photo of the man. “Because now I know exactly what you look like in case you come in here again causing trouble. Now scram. I have a meal I’d like to get back to.”

That was enough to scare the man into quickly making his way to the door and ducking back out into the rain, bustling down the sidewalk and turning the corner without further argument. Marinette went back to lock the front door and decided to turn off the lights to the front of the store to deter anyone else from knocking. “Thanks,” Marinette sighed.

“No problem,” Alya raised a brow. “I knew something was fishy when I saw him. He’s a piece of shit.”

Marinette leaned her back against the door. “You know him?”

“Not personally, but I immediately recognized him,” Alya explained. “He’s one of Mayor Bourgeois’s smarmy staff interns. I had to deal with him when I stopped by Bourgeois’s office to get an interview with him for the paper. He’s a fresh-out-of-university entitled little prick.”

“Brilliant,” Marinette muttered under her breath.

“Any particular reason one of the mayor’s staff members would come here looking for Chloe?” Alya asked.

Marinette clicked her tongue against her teeth, debating what to say. “Off the record?”

“What, do you think I’d report this?”

“I just need you to say it,” Marinette insisted.

“Marinette, what the fuck is going on — ”

“Say it first!”

“Babe, I’m not going to go scurry off and write a seedy article behind your back, especially when it partially concerns you,” Alya said. “Yes, okay, off the record. This doesn’t leave the store. Now what was that?”

Marinette sighed and bit down on her lip. “I can’t tell you.”

Alya scowled. “What, is Chloe bribing you to keep mum about even more shit now?”

“She hasn’t been bribing me this whole time, why would she start now?” Marinette pointed out. “Look, it’s none of my business. But me kicking out nosy people like that who are going to start interrogating me for information benefits me too, so I don’t mind doing it.”

“Yeah,” Alya huffed. “That seems to be a going theme with you.”

“Alya — ”

“Sorry, sorry, look, I get it. It’s what you do. You like helping people. But, Jesus, is this going to become a regular thing now? People snooping around your place looking for her while you chase them out with a broom? You don’t deserve that! Why does this shit have to come back to you?”

Marinette rolled her eyes and walked back to her office. “You’re trying to help,” she called back to her. “I know that. But I really don’t want to talk about this right now. Let’s just finish eating. Okay?”

Alya hesitated near the front of the store, and Marinette could feel her staring as she sat down in her seat and swirled her chopsticks around in her food, trying to find her appetite. Alya cursed under her breath as she slowly walked back and dragged her chair around so that it was right in front of Marinette’s. “Listen, I’m sorry.” She sat down and reached out for Marinette’s hand. “You know I’m just worried about you, right?”

“I know. Trust me, I get it. Don’t even worry about it.”

“No, I shouldn’t have said that. It’s your business, and you clearly don’t want me involved in it. I’ll respect that.”

“It’s fine,” she mumbled, squeezing Alya’s fingers. “You’re not wrong.”

Alya lowered her head, trying to search her face for something that Marinette was trying her best not to reveal. “Hey.” She reached up to rub Marinette’s arm. “If there was….something going on between you two. You know, more than just a mutually beneficial arrangement that’s not skin off your nose. You’d tell me, right?”

“Please tell me you’re not suggesting what I think you are.”

“No, you idiot,” Alya deadpanned. “I just mean….if anything’s shifted between the two of you that’s more than what this started out as — just a favor. If it’s more serious than that.”

Marinette nodded. “Yeah,” she lied. “Of course I would.”

“Because this is a lot to go through for one person. I know _I’d_ do this for you, but it’s the two of us. That makes sense. Unless I’m not caught up on something, this is weird for you. I mean how long is this going to go on for?”

“Chloe’s….handling it,” Marinette said lamely. It was unclear what Chloe was planning in order to stop this ridiculous scrutiny that her father was putting on her. Marinette tried to gently bring up the topic and ask her if she’d spoken to her father, but she’d immediately grow quiet and say that she didn’t want to talk about it, as if any attempts that had already been made had been thoroughly unsuccessful. Marinette couldn’t imagine that kind of frustration, and she wasn’t in any position to tell Chloe how to handle her issues, so she couldn’t ever bring herself to push Chloe about it further. How were you supposed to convince your family that your feelings weren’t frivolous little games that were childish and easy to quit? “She’s got a lot on her plate.”

“I’m sure she does,” Alya agreed. “But you’re important too. You have every right to prioritize your comfort over anyone else’s. You don’t have to put your neck out for her if you don’t want to. Just remember that if things ever become too much.”

“I’m not a masochist,” Marinette said. “I’m not so self-sacrificing that I’m going to put myself through shit for the sake of another person that probably wouldn’t do the same back.”

“I never said you were a masochist. But you’ve always been like this. You want to do the right thing and you want to help people who need it. And that’s a beautiful thing, and I love that about you. But you’re not a superhero, and you don’t owe anyone anything that’s going to stretch yourself to capacity. Granted we’re not fourteen anymore, but if you don’t mind my saying, Chloe doesn’t deserve to demand this much of you.”

Bold words from Alya, but Marinette wouldn’t have expected anything different. “I’m not just cutting pieces of myself and giving them out to whoever asks. I’ve got something to gain from this too. Chloe has something to give me that I’m allowed to take for myself.”

Alya snorted. “You’re _sure_ she’s not bribing you?”

“I thought you agreed that this was my business.”

“Sorry. Reporter instinct. I’ll stop. But if you ever need me for something, I’m a phone call away. And I’m serious. Don’t kill yourself for her.”

“Alright. My promise from me to you. Fair enough?”

“I’ll take it,” Alya smirked, pressing a quick kiss to Marinette’s temple. She picked her food back up and gestured to the phone in her pocket. “Want the photo of that dude?”

“Why not?” Marinette smirked. “Chloe might want to turn it into a dartboard.”

She shuffled around the papers on her desk for her cell phone, making a note to herself to send the picture to her manager coming in tomorrow as well to make sure that nothing untoward happened while she wasn’t in the boutique. Hopefully Chloe would be able to do something discreet on her end to make sure that at least this intern wouldn’t be coming here to strike up trouble a second time. She was about to send a quick update when she noticed that Chloe had left her an unread message not even ten minutes before Alya had walked in for lunch.

But when Marinette opened the text, she re-read it three times, leaned back into her chair, and felt her heart sink deep into her chest.

* * *

 

> **chloe:** gone. back in three weeks. don’t call.


	5. Part 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a little birthday present to myself :) apologies in advance since this one might be a bit of a rough ride ^^;

“Can I pick your brain for a second?”

Marinette looked up from the beat up moleskin she was writing in and saw Chloe staring out the bathroom window with her cheek pressed up against the lip of the clawfoot tub. “Sure. What’s wrong?”

Chloe shook her head, scooping up a handful of bathwater filled with salts, oils, and bubbles and pouring it over her bare knees. “Nothing. I’ve just been thinking about some things, and I thought you might add some perspective.” 

“I mean, no promises, but I’ll do what I can.” She reached over to place her sketchbook on the windowsill and turned on the taps to the tub to add more hot water. “Want more bubbles?”

“Nah, I’m good. This oil you put in here is great though. And the bath salts.”

Marinette shrugged and nudged Chloe’s foot with her own under the water. “You looked miserable when you came over. Thought they might help. Besides, Sunday morning baths are a ritual in my house.”

“You seem like the overly romantic type to love reading and sketching while soaking in a bath on a sunny day. Talk about an Instagram aesthetic.” 

Marinette splashed Chloe’s knees with a wave of soapy water and smirked. “You wanted to ask me something?” 

Chloe nodded and stared down at the water for a few moments while she chewed on her words. She reached over to shut off the hot water and asked, “What happened when you came out to your parents?” 

Marinette blinked and leaned back against the porcelain. “What do you mean what happened?”

“I mean, how did they react? When you told them. What happened right after?“

“I don’t know if you’d want all the details.”

“I’m asking, aren’t I?” she replied. “I’m curious.”

Marinette sighed as she leaned her elbows on her knees and scratched at the bun piled on the top of her head. “I don’t know where to start…”

“Was it the kind of thing where you sat them down in the living room, paced for dramatic effect, and dropped the bomb on them?”

Marinette laughed. “No, nothing like that. I was twenty and I guess one of the neighbors saw me making out against the door to my apartment with this girl I was seeing on and off. He asked my parents about my new girlfriend and needless to say they were very shocked and confused. When I came back from classes that day they confronted me and asked me what was happening. So….I told them.”

“Shit,” Chloe breathed out.

“Yeah. I mean, I was going to tell them soon. I wanted them to know, I just wasn’t sure how to start the conversation. But it’d been started for me, I guess, so I sort of just had to roll with it.” 

Chloe was leaning closer now, mirroring Marinette’s position and reaching in between them to link pinkies with her. “How’d it go?”

Marinette gently swung their hands back and forth and kept her gaze towards the window. “Papa took it just fine. His sister has a wife, and he’s the type of person that doesn’t think he has a right to pass judgement on how people live their lives so long as they’re happy. He kissed the top of my head, gave me a hug, and didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to, I knew that he was alright with it.”

“And your mother?”

Marinette bit the inside of her cheek and squeezed Chloe’s finger. “She was quiet for a long time. She looked at me like she couldn’t hear me and asked me to say it again. So I did. And….then she looked at me like she couldn’t see me.”

Chloe’s other hand immediately came out of the water and rubbed Marinette’s calf. “Fuck, Marinette….”

“Something shifted is what I mean,” Marinette explained. “Like suddenly I was a stranger to her, because I had been hiding this huge secret from her all these years and now she was seeing me in a whole new light. When it finally hit her, she just started crying and couldn’t look at me.”

“Why?”

“She kept saying it wasn’t what she wanted for me. She was worried about what people would say and about how people would treat me. Don’t misunderstand, Maman has never had an issue with it where it concerned other people. But the moment it was me, she was terrified of how her side of the family would take things. What they’d say about me behind our backs and how they’d treat me at reunions, things like that. She was afraid of the judgement. For all of us, but mostly for me.”

Chloe nodded. “Family talks.”

“Exactly,” Marinette said. “It was more than that, too. She was afraid I was going to get spit on in the street for holding hands with a woman, or that I’d walk into a gay bar and never come out or something like that. And I get that. I really do think she just wanted something easier and simpler for me and this complicated things. But Papa was there next to me having my back, and the three of us talked for hours after that. And once the tears were shed and the air was cleared, Maman hugged me and said that I was her daughter and that she loved me with her entire soul. There was nothing that I could say that could ever make that untrue.” 

Chloe smiled softly and brushed Marinette’s cheek with her knuckle so that she could turn to face her. “You’ve got great parents. They’ve always adored you, even I could tell.”

“Your father adores you too,” Marinette told her. “And he loves you, even if he has a funny way of showing it lately. You should never forget that.”

“I know,” Chloe mutters. “But sometimes it feels like there’s a conditional there somewhere. Like it only took one thing for that to all come toppling down. Like I had the power to completely break his heart. Now he’s treating me like a criminal, and I don’t feel like I even deserve to say anything to him.” 

Marinette frowned. “You know that’s not true.” 

“I can’t have him angry at me, Marinette,” Chloe whispered, her voice sounding thick at the end. “He’s the only family I have.”

“His head just needs time to catch up with his heart. And then you two can talk,  _ really _ talk. And things will start to fix themselves.”

Chloe laughed. “Your optimism is really annoying.” 

Marinette smiled and pressed a kiss to the back of Chloe’s hand. “You’ll be okay. And if you need anything, I’m right here.” 

Chloe ran her thumb over Marinette’s knuckles. “I know. I don’t forget it.”

* * *

 

Marinette hadn’t really bothered to go through the trouble of truly getting to know someone for quite a long time. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that she had never wanted to go through the trouble until very recently. Either way, being out of practice had made her forget what a sluggish process it could be and how much frustration had the potential to build in up in response to such a steep learning curve. 

Learning Chloe was like learning a new language from scratch. Marinette had a decent collection of words and phrases that she could recall with ease. Chloe drank her coffee black in the mornings and with a splash of cream in the afternoons. She liked sleeping in her underwear and in the oversized t-shirts she stole from Marinette’s drawers. She often wore rings on most if not all of her fingers. She didn’t give off much body heat and always woke up with cold toes and fingers that she always warmed up against Marinette’s skin. She preferred candles and fairy lights to lamps and overhead lights. She was a beautiful singer who hummed songs in the shower every day. 

The problem came when Marinette was forced to consider Chloe in larger contexts, and that’s when comprehension consistently failed her. Marinette knew that Chloe had folded up polaroid photos in her wallet that she smiled fondly at whenever she pulled them out, but Marinette didn’t know why she only did it when Marinette was sleeping or when she thought Marinette wasn’t looking. Marinette could easily tell when Chloe was in a mood where she didn’t want to be bothered and didn’t like to be touched, but she couldn’t tell if it was because she was angry, depressed, distracted, or distraught.

Marinette knew that Chloe had disappeared and didn’t want to be contacted while she was gone. But she didn’t know why, didn’t know where she could’ve gone, didn’t know if this was normal behavior for her, and didn’t know if this was the time for her to leave Chloe be or somehow intervene. 

Something about the suddenness felt  _ off _ and re-reading her succinct text did nothing but fill Marinette with more unease. But Marinette didn’t know Chloe well enough to know what she was meant to do — what the  _ best _ thing to do was. So she cut her losses early and turned to Adrien. 

Adrien tended to shut his personal phone off while he was handling  _ Gabriel _ related business, which meant that Marinette wasn’t able to grab him on the phone until about five days after Chloe had said she’d be gone. The moment Marinette mentioned Chloe’s three week trip, Adrien seemed genuinely confused. Apparently he’d been on his way to meet her for a lunch date they’d planned close to two weeks ago. It wasn’t until he looked through the mountains of unread texts that he hadn’t yet gotten around to checking since he came back from dealing with his business that he realized Chloe had sent Adrien the same text she’d sent Marinette. Back in three weeks. Don’t call. 

It seemed she was right to worry, because Adrien wasted no time jumping on the train and making his way over to Marinette’s boutique, bringing lunch from the restaurant he and Chloe were supposed to eat at and insisting that they needed to talk. Marinette offered up no resistance as she put on a pot of coffee in her office while Adrien sat at her desk and started frantically swiping through his phone. 

“This is so bizarre,” Adrien said under his breath a few minutes later as he scrolled through Chloe’s Instagram, letting his food go cold next to him. “All of her social media’s been dead since she texted us. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, everything. She even turned all her locations off.”

Marinette sat on top of her desk and stared at Adrien’s phone from above. “Has she ever done that before?”

“No. She doesn’t unplug. Ever,” Adrien emphasized. “Whenever she goes on vacations or trips by herself, she always brags about it and posts constantly about it. I’ve never seen her go off the grid like this. The only time she’s ever come close was when that tabloid piece dropped.” 

Marinette shook her head. “I already thought of that. I’ve been googling her for the past couple of days and all the big celebrity news sites and tabloids haven’t said anything about her. If there was something juicy she was running away from, they would’ve ran it already.”

Adrien laced his hands on the back of his neck and hung his head. “For fuck’s sake,” he mumbled. “Never a dull moment with her, I swear.” 

“It must have been a last minute decision,” Marinette guessed. “Otherwise she wouldn’t have forgotten to cancel her plans with you before she left. Maybe that means something happened just before she texted us.”

“I’ve been so busy dealing with father’s finances that I haven’t really been checking up on her for the past couple of weeks,” Adrien said. “She seemed fine the last time I saw her. If anything, she seemed in a better mood than she had been for the past few months.” He peeked up at Marinette through his bangs. “Did she say anything to you recently?”

“Why would she tell me anything?”

“Don’t be modest. She spends just as much time with you as she does with me. She told me so herself. It’s not a stretch to think she’d confide in you about something that was bothering her.” 

Marinette set her jaw. “Well, in this case it is. I don’t know anything.” 

“Was she acting differently?”

“I mean, maybe there were some days where she had a lot on her mind and she was more quiet than usual. But like you said, she’s been in a really good mood for the most part. I thought things were getting better after all the drama with her and her father. So for her to just drop off the face of the Earth like this makes me think something’s seriously wrong. That’s why I called you.” 

Adrien spread out his hands as if they were physically devoid of answers. “I don’t know what happened to her if that’s what you’re asking. But if you want a seasoned opinion, I’d say it was so bad she just needed to check out.”

“What do you mean check out?” 

“She does that sometimes,” Adrien explained. “Chloe isn't easily bothered. But when she is, she doesn't react well. We got into a huge fight our last year of lycée, and she was absent from school for five days until she got up the nerve to apologize. Then when that scandal happened, she holed herself up in the hotel for close to two weeks and would only talk to me over the phone. I think the worst was when we were nine though.”

“What happened?” 

Adrien sighed and hesitated for a few moments as he leaned back in his seat. “You have to promise you won’t talk to her about this until she decides to tell you herself. It’s a really sore topic and she hates when I bring it up.” 

“That bad?”

He started fiddling with one of Marinette’s pens. “You know Chloe’s parents are divorced, right?”

Marinette shrugged. “I sort of assumed something like that. She never talked about her mother, not even when we were kids.” 

“That’s because she really didn’t take the divorce well,” Adrien continued. “Her mother had been having a lot of affairs here and there before her father finally put his foot down. I’m not really sure what the reason was, but Chloe’s mother decided she just….didn’t want to be bothered with taking care of Chloe anymore. So her father kept full custody and her mother sort of just left. Promised she’d send gifts and visit her on the holidays, but that was about it. I don’t think Chloe goes out of her way much to call or visit her anymore. She’s become so indifferent she doesn’t see the point.” 

“But I imagine she wasn’t indifferent when it happened,” Marinette said. 

Adrien winced. “Definitely not. She was fine for a couple of days, but then I guess she couldn’t hold it in anymore because she wound up running away.”

“Like  _ actually _ running away from home?”

“I don’t think she was gone for more than a day. But yeah. She left the hotel one day and didn’t tell her butler or her driver where she was going. She left a note in her room saying she was okay, but that she wanted to be left alone for a while. Once her father found it, he realized that one of her suitcases was gone along with a bunch of her clothes. The only reason I knew about all this at the time was because Chloe’s father had called my mother in a panic and she had to sit me down and ask me a bunch of questions. We were best friends, they thought I might’ve known something.” 

“Where did she go for a whole day if she was only nine years old?”

“Well, that’s why she was only gone for a day,” Adrien explained. “They found her outside a bus depot crying because they wouldn’t sell her a ticket to leave the city. She’d just been wandering around at first — sitting in parks, looking through museums, that kind of thing. But I guess she had every intentions of leaving the city if only she was old enough to buy the tickets.” 

Marinette swallowed. “Was she going to see her mother?”

Adrien shrugged. “I don’t know what she was thinking. Chloe never told me where she was planning on going that day. All she told me was that she missed her mother, and that she was just too sad to see anyone anymore. She was going to come back once she finally stopped crying whenever she didn’t wake up to see her mother making coffee in the kitchen.”

“So that’s what you think this is? A reaction to some hypothetically fucked up situation that neither of us knows anything about?”

“That’s all I’ve got,” Adrien replied helplessly.

Marinette snorted. “Yeah? Well I’ll put money on this having something to do with her father.”

“You don’t know that….”

“Don’t I?” she countered. “Did you know she’s been coming to see me at my place these past few weeks?” 

Adrien’s eyes widened in interest. “You mean at your house?”

“On the weekends, she’s there almost constantly,” Marinette explained. “When she has time during the week, she comes over right after I close up shop and stays for as late as she can before going back home. She tells me that when she’s not with me, she’s with you.”

“Well, yeah,” Adrien answered. “Before I got busy with work I guess she was coming over more often. And we’ve been going out a lot more, too. What’s your point?”

“She’s barely home, Adrien. That’s probably why she’s been in such a good mood, because she’s been avoiding him. There wouldn’t be a need to spend so much time away from him if things between them weren’t two seconds away from exploding. Whatever happened to her to make her bolt like this, it had to do with her father. I’m positive.” 

“Look, even if you’re right, what are you going to do with that information?” Adrien asked. “Confront him? Ask him what happened? You and I both know that’s not going to end well. It doesn’t matter  _ why _ she ran off. We just have to keep an eye on our phones and the Internet to see if any news pops up. If she reaches out or we find out she’s not safe, then we can figure out what to do from there.” 

Marinette raised an eyebrow and laughed. “Wait a minute….so we’re  _ not _ going to try and look for her?”

“Did you think we were?”

“ _ Aren’t _ we?”

“No,” Adrien said shortly. “She doesn’t want us contacting her, which means she probably doesn’t want us looking for her. That’s a clear enough message to me.”

“This doesn’t sound like a cry for help to you?”

“It doesn’t matter if it is or if it isn’t. She’s not nine years old, Marinette.”

“I’m not infantilizing her,” Marinette glared. “I’m just worried. Three weeks is a pretty long time to spend clearing your head alone. A lot can happen and a lot can go through your head in that time without someone to pull you out of it.”

Adrien scowled and turned his chair to properly face her. “Maybe she doesn’t want anyone to pull her out of anything. I get you’re concerned, but if Chloe needs space, then she deserves to have it. This has nothing to do with us, so it makes no sense for us to start meddling.”

Marinette gripped the edges of the desk and glared into her lap. “It involves us….” she muttered. 

“Just because she’s been confiding in us doesn’t mean we have permission to go poking our noses into her business if she doesn’t want us to.”

“You don’t get it!” Marinette insisted. “It’s more complicated than that.” 

“Then uncomplicate it for me! Is there something I don’t know?”

Marinette snorted weakly at the irony and swallowed back all the secrets that Chloe had only given to Marinette, right along with the sordid details of a relationship that Marinette hadn’t ever tried to put into words. The weight of it all settled thick and heavy in her stomach, and she hoped the worry it was etching onto her face wasn’t obvious enough for Adrien to think she really was hiding something. She rubbed one of her eyes and quickly jumped onto a separate train of thought. “All I’m saying is that you know better than anyone else how terrified she is of disappointing him. He’s the center of her world, and he’s always given her everything she asked for because he adores her. How else is she going to react when he pulls all that out from underneath her and tells her that he suddenly doesn’t give a shit about her feelings?” 

Adrien softened his gaze and bit the inside of his cheek as he reached out to lay a hand on Marinette’s knee. He waited until she was looking at him before he spoke again. “I’m not denying that, okay? Trust me, I know exactly what kind of nonsense he’s been feeding her ever since he found out about that woman she was with. I’m not trying to trivialize what she’s going through.” 

“I know you’re not,” Marinette said. She sighed and looked up at the ceiling, smirking at the absurdity of it all. “She  _ hurts _ , Adrien. I’ve gotten so used to her that whenever she lets things fester or starts to shut down, it makes me feel sick. Like I have to do something about it for her sanity and for mine. I feel like I got tricked into this, but now it’s too late because whenever I think about her having to wade through her father’s bullshit after she did nothing wrong….I don’t know, it pisses me off. She’s spent enough time alone.”

There was an inside joke that Marinette had with herself about Chloe — the only times where Chloe managed to be pleasant and approachable were the times when her father was around. He came to all of her concerts to record her acapella solos, he sat in the audience and held up decorated signs with Chloe’s name on it when she had a ten second speaking role in a play, and some days he’d surprise her outside of school by pulling up in his own car and coming to pick her up instead. The days where she jumped into his arms and hugged him — telling him how she loved him and laughing sweetly when he told her how much he loved her back — managed to soften how Marinette saw her for a few moments before Chloe slipped right back to her antagonism. Her love for her father was one of the more beautiful things about Chloe, and seeing it have to come face-to-face with his intolerance was like watching her slowly suffocate while her father looked on, thinking her growing silence meant compliance. 

“It’s not just you,” Adrien promised her. “It makes me angry too. But sometimes Chloe doesn’t tell you things and doesn’t involve you in things even though you think she should. That’s just how she is. I’ve never really seen the point in stepping on her toes about it. That’s why I think we shouldn’t intrude.” 

Marinette gave him a small smile. That certainly sounded like Adrien. He was very careful with his friends and wasn’t the type to pry or go against someone’s wishes even if he felt that it could be helpful. Unfortunately, Marinette wasn’t that passive. “Then who does she tell everything to?”

“No one,” Adrien chuckled. “Chloe doesn’t give all of herself to anyone.”

* * *

 

It was annoying how much the silence of Marinette’s apartment bothered her now. Before it had simply been an unfortunate side effect of living where she did, which Marinette gracefully accepted for the sake of taking advantage of the practical location and the beautiful view. Now it just felt uncomfortable, like the aftermath of a raucous celebration that left the space cluttered with an uncanny stillness after all the noise and excitement had been robbed by the late hour. She hadn’t realized how accustomed she’d become to sketching and going through bills in the kitchen while Chloe watched television in the living room, her running commentary turning into a calming hum in the background. It was hard not to laugh at Chloe when she got particularly shrill, and it actually put her in a better mood as she plowed through all the work she was forced to take home with her. 

Now she couldn’t even pick up a pen without being distracted by the ringing in her ears and the echoes that pounded through the living room every time she so much as set down her coffee mug. It was less that she missed her and more that she’d become Marinette’s new normal, and having her so violently ripped out of her weekly routine made everything feel tilted. It made her spend more hours in her office and pile herself on with more work just so that she could push herself just enough to keep her mind from focusing on anything else but her job. 

However, the ironic part about that strategy was that the more time she spent in her boutique, the more her discomfort about Chloe came barreling straight into her every time she saw the occasional customer loitering around in her store and pretending to examine her stock before skulking out the store with no purchases to speak of. 

It wasn’t difficult to tell they were sent by Mayor Bourgeois. Every time she made eye contact with one of these customers or offered to help them look for something to buy, they took pains to get out of the store as quickly as possible as if they were afraid they’d been caught. They were often followed by strangers who’d come inside looking for their friends, cousins, or girlfriends while rattling off descriptions that perfectly matched Chloe’s to other customers before Marinette intercepted and gently pushed them out the store. And as if that wasn’t aggravating enough, every time Marinette’s phone rang, she wasn’t sure if she was speaking to a potential customer or gearing up for an interrogation about which local celebrities frequented her shop. 

Marinette suspected that the excessive detail was because Mayor Bourgeois was also feeling anxious over the whereabouts of his daughter. Adrien had already told her that he’d been calling him regularly and asking for any information or insight as to where his daughter could have disappeared. Perhaps checking all of the places Chloe loved spending time in and speaking to the people who knew her the best was the most effective and logical strategy for finding information about Chloe, and Marinette really wanted to believe that this was the reason for all of her unwanted guests. But the surveillance made her feel like she was a suspect, and Marinette did not forget how much Mayor Bourgeois seemed to think Chloe was gambling away the rest of her reputation by playing frivolous games with another woman in an attempt to embarrass or spite him. She did not forget the night when Chloe told her that her father seemed to think Marinette was someone to worry about. 

Every stare one of the mayor’s spies sent from the corner of their eyes felt piercing. Like they knew how close Chloe and Marinette had gotten. Like Chloe’s  _ father _ knew. Like maybe this wasn’t just him indulging his paranoia, and maybe this was just a way of confirming for himself what he already knew for sure. 

It bothered her so much during her walk back to her apartment at the end of the day that Marinette drew all of her blinds and checked the locks on her doors three times as if she were afraid that someone from the outside was peering into her space with malicious intentions. The fear had always been there since the morning after their first night together — what if Chloe’s driver wasn’t as discreet as she hoped he was, what if Chloe wasn’t careful enough, what if Chloe’s father was just a bit too nosy? A bit too perceptive? 

After all, news that his daughter was amusing himself with another woman would be enough to infuriate him, and that anger directed at Chloe seemed like exactly the sort of thing that would make her react the way she did. 

It didn’t matter that it was just a theory built on little proof. Marinette’s mind was already morphing the idea into a slew of negative aftermaths that were enough to make her feel like she was physically buckling under the pressure of the past few days. A week and a half with no updates. Adrien was just as clueless as she was. She was dreading doing to work tomorrow to face more of Mayor Bourgeois’s nonsense. She had so much work she needed to do and so much sleep that she needed to catch up on. And her apartment was still so fucking  _ quiet _ that she couldn’t calm herself down long enough to  _ think _ . 

It wasn’t until she’d chased down one too many painkillers for her migraine and curled up on the couch with the warmest robe she could find that her cellphone, sitting innocently on the coffee table, began to look tempting. Marinette dismissed all of her work notifications and scrolled through her recent calls until she found Chloe’s number. She could already hear Adrien scolding her for the slip up, but she just needed to know. She needed to know what Chloe was thinking, what Chloe needed, and what Marinette was supposed to be doing. Perhaps Adrien thought that all this wasn’t his business and that he had no reason to get himself involved, but Marinette felt differently. 

The dial tone rang five times while a dull ache began to press against the back of her throat. When the other line finally picked up, there was a long silence on the other end. Only the white noise of the air around the receiver and the dull sounds of what might have been traffic in the background were audible. Marinette could hear the phone shifting, but she didn’t dare break the silence first. Instead the two of them sat together and listened to the muted sounds of their breathing before Chloe spoke through her hoarseness. “ _ Is that you, Marinette? _ ”

Chloe didn’t sound angry. She sounded tired and quiet, and Marinette could tell her lips were close to the mouthpiece, as if she were cupping the phone close while she spoke. Marinette cleared her throat. “Yeah. It’s me.” She bit her lip and tried to smile. “Hi, I guess.”

Chloe snorted weakly. “ _ Hi _ .”

“I, uh….” Marinette began. “I’m sorry. I know you didn’t want me to call. I wasn’t going to, so I’m not sure why I did.”

“ _ To be fair, I knew the minute I sent that text you weren’t going to fucking listen to it. You never listen to me. I’m surprised you lasted this long.” _

Marinette laughed, grateful that her tone didn’t sound harsh. “I think I did pretty good.” 

“ _ By your standards, I guess.” _

“An accomplishment all the same, though, right?”

“ _ I’ll mark it as a win for you in my diary later _ .”

The familiar banter was like a wash of relief and Marinette clung to it if only to convince herself that Chloe wasn’t as worse off as she knew she was. But Chloe’s soft laughter was short lived, ending with a long sigh that trembled at the end and made Chloe sound impossibly small. Marinette swallowed and figured she shouldn’t waste the phone call with things that weren’t important. “I just wanted to check on you. See how you are.”

“ _ I’m alright,” _ Chloe said. “ _ Just trying to get some fresh air. _ ”

“You’re outside?”

“ _ Sitting on the sill. Windows open. _ ”

“Where are you?”

“ _ Living room.” _

“No I mean where  _ are _ you?”

Chloe immediately clamped down. “ _ Somewhere. Don’t worry about it. _ ” 

Marinette withered. “I can’t help but worry about it.”

“ _ Well I’m telling you not to _ ,” she replied, her voice developing a slight edge. 

“Okay,” Marinette quickly amended. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” 

Chloe hesitated. “ _I just….needed to get some air. Clean air. That wasn’t….touched by anything, you know?_ _Everything was clogging up around me and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. That’s all._ ”

“‘That’s all’?” Marinette echoed. “You make it sound like that’s normal.” 

“ _ Yeah, well _ ,” Chloe muttered. “ _ Welcome to a day in the life.” _

Marinette hung her head. “Chloe, you can’t just say things like that.”

“ _ Who says I can’t?” _

“I….I just mean that when you say things like that you make me worry even more. And then I wonder if you’re really alright.”

“ _ I told you I am _ .”

“Oh, stop it,” Marinette frowned. “You sound miserable.”

“ _ I’m tired, Marinette. It’s late. It’s been a long day, and I’m just trying to rest.” _

“I know you better than that. You know I know you better than that.”

“ _ I don’t know what you want me to tell you, Marinette,” _ Chloe said. 

Marinette took a few seconds to carefully order the words in her head so that Chloe wouldn’t react too sharply. “I want you….I only want to know what’s wrong. I know you say you’re okay but I know something’s wrong. Or that something happened. And I just want to know what it is so that I can help you.”

The line stayed silent, and then Marinette heard the sound of the window closing. “ _ I’m going to bed, Marinette.” _

Marinette covered her face with one hand. “Chloe, please, don’t hang up. Please don’t hang up, I’m not trying to pry, I just want to understand.”

“ _No, but that’s the thing, you_ are _trying to pry_ ,” Chloe explained. “ _You didn’t call because you wanted to comfort me, you called because you hate being left in the dark. You wanna talk about how well you know me? Well I know_ you _. And I know it kills you when you can’t be useful in a situation._ _That’s all this is.”_

“I’m not trying to fish for information to soothe my own curiosity, and if you really think that’s why I would do this, then you don’t know me as well as you think you do,” Marinette said. “I’m not stupid. You’re hurting, I know something happened to make you feel like you had to run away from it and hole yourself up in a place where no one could find you. I just want to — ”

“ _ Help, I know,” _ Chloe interrupted. “ _ That’s all you want to do. Trust me, I’m very familiar with your M.O. Marinette the helper, right? Always have to involve yourself in everything because you’re so fucking sympathetic to everything. You’re so confident that you’ll understand everything. You’re so positive people are just going to open up to you and dump their worries onto you so you can swoop in and just fix everything. _ ” She laughed bitterly. “ _ You can’t fix shit just because you  _ want _ you. Wanting isn’t enough. If it was, we wouldn’t have so many miserable people in the world.” _

Marinette swallowed and set her jaw. “This coming from the person who had to bribe me to help her when things started to look sour, huh?”

“Fuck _ you.” _ Chloe snarled. “ _ I didn’t ask you to call me to check on me. I certainly didn’t ask for your help.” _

“So why did you answer?” Marinette asked. “If you didn’t ask me to call and you didn’t want me to check on you, why did you answer?”

Chloe had nothing to say to that. She cursed loudly and Marinette could her her stomping around the room she was standing in, probably pacing or going for a walk like she tended to do when she was heated up. Marinette pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to bring the conversation back before it was lost. 

“I’m not trying to force myself into anything,” Marinette defended.

“ _ Good, because you shouldn’t. This isn’t any of your business, have you ever thought of that?” _

Marinette blinked. “...I think it’s partially my business, Chloe.”

“ _ Enlighten me. _ ”

Marinette scoffed. “Do you want a list? A discretion policy that you almost bribed me into, protection detail from the press that you didn’t want to face, making me lie to your father’s overpaid interns and assistants who are fucking crawling all over my place of business trying to catch you in something, thank you very much. And coming to my place to take cover from your father because you’re bored or you need a fuck or you’re too scared to talk to him. Trust me, I’m  _ plenty _ involved in whatever bullshit you have going on in your life because  _ you _ forced me into it. So excuse the fuck out of me if I feel like maybe I deserve an explanation when you decide to pick up and leave while I deal with the mess you handed to me.” 

“ _ Oh, don’t pretend like you didn’t happily agree to it,” _ Chloe snapped. “ _ You didn’t  _ have _ to say yes to any of that. You didn’t have to do anything. Everything you’ve got yourself wrapped up in, you  _ wanted _ to do. Why do I suddenly have to wear my heart on my sleeve for your sake just because you decided to turn me into a charity project? Not everything about me concerns you _ .”

“No, it does concern me!” Marinette insisted. “It concerns me because you’ve put me in a position where it can’t possibly  _ not _ concern me. We’ve spent months concerned with each other. You promised me you’d tell me things that were important because we both had stakes in this. You promised me you’d come to me if something happened. You were taking cover from your father in my  _ house _ and you were sitting  _ in my house _ , when you promised me that you’d tell me when he slipped something stupid into your head again. God forbid I care enough about what’s happening to you to believe in those promises.” 

Chloe didn’t respond right away, and for a moment Marinette thought she’d finally volleyed her an argument she couldn’t return. But she always underestimated Chloe’s inability to sit with the possibility that she was wrong or that her feelings were the ones that were misdirected. It left her vulnerable to a type of scrutiny that Chloe had historically fought like hell to avoid, so she took Marinette’s words, sharpened them, and thrust them back with the intention of causing her harm. “ _ You make that sound awfully romantic. Is that what you think? We had sex a few times so now we have to tell each other everything because we care so much?” _

“Screw you,” Marinette muttered. “That’s not what I meant.”

“ _ I think that’s exactly what you meant.” _ Chloe laughed. “ _ I don’t love you, Marinette. None of what I did was because I loved you. Me telling you what I’ve told you and confiding to you what I have wasn’t love. Don’t make the mistake and fit romance into this.” _

“You’re the one bringing up romance, not me.”

“ _ You’re the one who told me you’re constantly pining for something consistent. Your exact words, right? I have no doubt you’re adding sentimentality where it doesn’t belong. You need to stop reading into things. You wanna know why I ask you for help and why I tell you things? The real reason? No bullshit and no sparing your feelings?” _ She paused for effect and enunciated carefully into the phone. “ _ I know you can’t say no to me.” _

Marinette felt her eyes narrowing. “You’re awfully conceited.”

“ _ It’s not conceit,” _ Chloe clarified. “ _ You wanna know what happened after that tabloid piece dropped? I left my house to go for a walk to clear my head and figure out what I was supposed to be doing and I happened to pass your shop. And I hadn’t thought about you in years, but then suddenly you were appearing to me right when everything felt like it was going to shit. And then I remembered how you were in school. That despite how fucking infuriating you were, you thought yourself a goddamn superhero. If someone needed your help, it didn’t matter what kind of a person they were and it didn’t matter if they deserved it. You cut yourself open and bled dry for people because you enjoyed it. So I walked in. And I made you bleed dry for me. _

_ “I knew I could get you to feel sorry for me,”  _ she continued. “ _ I knew I could get you to do anything for me. I liked the fact that if I told you something, you’d pour your heart out for me, and if I asked you to do something, you’d do it no questions asked because you only wanted to help.  _ That’s _ why I need you. So don’t mistake this for some half-baked love story where I suddenly owe you things because otherwise you’d be severely deluded. It’s a convenience arrangement. Is that clear enough for you?” _

Marinette let her words hang and marvelled at how strange it was to be able to feel the volume of Chloe’s words, but not feel their impact or their heat. It made her feel numb to what she knew would have shaken her had Chloe been here in person, nose two inches away from her own, eyes betraying no hesitance or affection, and no way to force a chasm between them and use miscommunications as a crutch for avoiding the truth. Chloe’s voice was mechanical — something that faded when Marinette pulled the phone away from her ear, and that made everything roll off her skin so that she was left feeling nothing. But then Marinette imagined what it must have been like to yell into a cellphone while standing in an empty room, in an empty house, absconded in what was probably some far off location not worth disclosing for fear of someone trying to come find her. Everything would be echoing against walls and bouncing right back, and there would be nowhere for that pain and hurt to go other than straight back into her. Perhaps that was why Chloe’s voice sounded broken when she finished — like had she been weaker, she might have accidentally let herself cry. 

Adrien was right. She shouldn’t have called. 

But now it was too late because Marinette had trained herself to absorb Chloe’s cruelty and fire it back. It was mostly for self-protection, but Marinette couldn’t deny the sick satisfaction of being able to control the same sort of detachment and disregard for another person’s feelings and use it to tear Chloe down to Marinette’s level. That’s all they’d ever done — take turns yanking each other down by the hair until they were both ragged, bloody, beaten, and equal. In hindsight she knew that such childishness had no place here, but Marinette’s compulsions were strong ones, and she was already pulling out awful half-truths that she knew would sting. 

“It’s funny. It’s always easier for you to paint me as the one who can’t read a situation or always feels too much. I’m starting to think it makes you feel superior to know what you’re the one who feels less and has the least to lose. And hey, maybe I get that seeing as how you had a rude introduction to what it was like to care about someone more than they cared about you. But if it makes you feel better, let me assure you right here and now that the two of us feel exactly the same way. Because I don’t love you either. We’re not married. We’re not dating. Like you said: no sentimentality.”

She gripped the phone tight enough to hear the plastic casing creak. “I’m not calling you because I’m some simpering little girl who can’t wait for you to come home. I’m calling because I’m worried about you like a normal human being should be, and I’m calling you because you don’t get to pull me right into the middle of your swirling shit storm and not tell me what’s going on.” Marinette tipped her head back towards the ceiling. “And you know what? Since you brought up the topic? You want to know the real reason I helped you specifically? Because how I treated everyone else when I was a teenager never applied to you. You bullied the  _ shit _ out of me for seven years, so maybe when the opportunity presented itself, I fell in love with the fact that you needed me for once. I was your only hope, and I thrived off that.” 

Chloe’s laughter sounded forced and hollow. “ _ God….you’re such a bitch. _ ”

“I’m being honest,” Marinette said. “You don’t know how satisfying it is to know that you are what a person  _ needs _ . You’re central. Inextricable. Important. I became important to you, and not only was it such a perfect dose of irony after all these years, but it made me feel powerful. And maybe that sounds selfish, and maybe it is, but you sought me out specifically because you knew I’d let you push my kindness as far as it would go, and you’d get to benefit from it.  _ That’s _ selfish. We’re both selfish. Is that what you want to hear?”

Chloe didn’t answer, and Marinette didn’t expect her to. She wasn’t sure how the conversation got away from them so quickly, but instead of answers and closure all either of them had to show for were handfuls of rot. Marinette felt like an addict constantly on the brink of relapse because it seemed like, when you took away all the excess and reduced the two of them down to their common denominators, they were always going to come back to this. In the context of each other, they were incapable of being selfless. It was always about gratification, and it was always about maintaining the upper hand. The reality was so depressing that now Marinette was feeling herself sink right into the cushions of the couch while the pressure behind her eyes grew. This was them. Chloe and Marinette. Butting heads. Never seeing eye to eye. And it felt fucking awful. 

Chloe inhaled through her nose. “ _ You know before you called? I had gotten off the phone with Daddy. Suffice it to say it didn’t go well, because it  _ never _ fucking goes well. So I broke a few wine glasses and screamed everything out until I was just sitting in the middle of my living room dry heaving and feeling like I was losing control of everything.” _ Marinette could practically hear the smirk in her voice. “ _ And then you called. And, you know, maybe that’s my fault for picking up and thinking that it was a sign or that it was going to make me feel better. I told myself not to answer but I did it anyway because….I’m used to you. You’re familiar and you don’t bite back. But hey. Next time I’ll know better. We’re both selfish, and normal people don’t fuck around with selfish people. Lucky us.” _

It felt like the world had gone still. Nothing was moving, everything felt dead, and Marinette suddenly realized how much worse she had just made everything. She shouldn’t have called. “Chloe, wait a minute — ”

“ _ Don’t call me again Marinette _ ,” Chloe instructed. “ _ And this time I mean it.” _

The line hung up before Marinette could get another word in. 


End file.
